Oak Street 


UNCLASSIFIED 
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' Pai vivian oy ee 
F 7 


THE TEXT CAREFULLY RESTORED ACCORDING TO i 
_ THE FIRST EDITIONS; WITH INTRODUCTIONS, i; 
NOTES ORIGINAI. AND SELECTED, AND 


_A LIFE OF THE POET; - am 


BY THE 


Rev, iH. N: HUDSON, A.M. - ia 


s 
IN ELEVEN VOLUMES. * 


VOL 


BOSTON: ae 
Onos bY AND ase? 


117 WaAsHINGTON STREET. | : 


1864. 


Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1856, by 
JAMES MUNROE AND COMPANY, 


In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court for the District of 
Massachusetts, 


STEREOTYPED AT THE 
BOSTON STEREOTYPE FOUNDRY. 


Se Re de LO EEE ey ekg hd gee pon 
1 y Xe to te > re ‘7 | , RAY eo A 


INTRODUCTION 


TO THE 


TRAGEDY OF ROMEO AND JULIET. 


THE story, which furnished the ground-work of THE TRAGEDY 

oF RomEo AND JULIET, was exceedingly popular in Shake- 
speare’s time ; it had been made so to his hand, and of course it 
became more so in his hand. Mr. Douce has shown, that in some 
of its main incidents it bears a strong resemblance to an old Greek 
romance by Xenophon of Ephesus, entitled «The Love-adven- 
tures of Abrocomas and Anthia.” The original author, however, 
of the story as received in the Poet’s time was Luigi da Porto, 
of Vincenza, who died in 1529. His novel, called La Giulietta, 
was first published in 1535, six years after his death. In an epis- 
tle prefixed to the work, the author says that the story was told by 
“an archer of mine, whose name was Peregrino, a man about fifty 
years old, well-practised in the military art, a pleasant companion, 
and, like almost all his countrymen of Verona, a great talker.” 
Luigi’s work was reprinted in 1539, and again in 1553. From bim 
the matter was borrowed and improved by Bandello, who pub- 
lished it in 1554, making it the ninth novel in the second part of 
his collection. Bandello represents the incidents to have occurred 
when Bartholomew Scaliger was lord of Verona. And it may be 
worth noting, that the Veronese, who believe the tale to be his- 
torically true, fix its date in 1303, at which time the family of 
Seala or Scaliger held the rule of the city. 

The story is next met with in the Histoires Tragiques of Belle- 
forest. It makes the third piece in that collection ; and, as the 
first six piece’ were rendered into French by Boisteau, it follows 
that this tale was translated by*him, and not by Belleforest. The 
‘Histoires Tragiques were professedly taken from Bandello, but 
some of them vary considerably from the Italian ; as in this very 
piece, according to Bandello, Juliet awakes from her trance in 
time to hear Romeo speak and see him die, and then, instead of 
stabbing herself with his dagger, dies apparently of a broken 


1* 


6 ROMEO AND JULIET. 


heart ; whereas Boisteau has it the same in this respect as we find 
it in the play. 

The earliest English version of the story, that has come down 
to us, is a poem entitled « The Tragical History of Romeus and 
Juliet,” written by Arthur Brooke, and published in 1562. This 
purports to be from the Italian of Bandello, but the French of | 
Boisteau was evidently made use of by Brooke, as his version 
agrees with the French in making the heroine’s trance continue til] 
after the death of her lover. In some respects, however, the poem 
is entitled to the rank of an original work ; the author not tying 
himself strictly to any known authority, but giving something of 
freedom to his own invention. We say known authority, because 
in his prose introduction Brooke informs us that the tale had al- 
ready been put to work on the English stage. His words are as 
follows: “'Though I saw the same argument lately set forth on 
the stage with more commendation than T can look for, yet the 
same matter, penned as it is, may serve to like good effect, if the 
readers do bring with them like good minds to consider it ; which 
hath the more encouraged me to publish it, such as it is.” 

The only ancient reprint of Brooke’s poem known to us was 
made in 1587; though it was entered a second time at the Sta- 
tioners’ in 1582. Malone set forth an edition of it in 1780; and 
in our own time Mr. Collier has given a very careful and accurate 
reprint of it in his Shakespeare’s Library. In sentiment, imagery, 
and versification, the poem has very considerable merit. It is 
written in rhyme, the lines consisting, alternately, of twelve and 
fourteen syllables. On the whole, it may rank among the best 
specimens we have of the popular English literature of that period ; 
being not so remarkable for reproducing the faults of the time, as 
for rising above them. 

Of Brooke himself very little is known. In a poetical address 
“to the Reader,” prefixed to the Tragical History, he speaks of 
this as “my youthful work,” and informs us that he had written 
other works “in divers kinds of style.”” We learn, also, from the 
hody of the poem, that he was unmarried ; and in 1563 there came 
out «An Agreement of sundry Places of Scripture,” by Arthur 
3rooke, with some verses prefixed by ‘Thomas Brooke, informing 
us that the author had perished by shipwreck. George Turber= 
ville, also, in his Epitaphs and Epigrams, 1567, has one “On the 
Death of Master Arthur Brooke, drowned in passing to Newha- 
ven 3”? and mentions the story of Romeus and Juliet as proving 
that he “for, metre did excel.” 

In 1567, five years after the date of Brooke’s poem, a prose 
version of the same tale was published by William Paynter, in his 
Palace of Pleasure, a collection of stories made from divers sources, 
ancient and modern. Paynter calls it “ The goodly History of 
the true and constant Jove between Rhomeo and Julietta.” It 
is merely a literal translation from the French of Boisteau, and by 


‘ 
¥ 


INTRODUCTION. * 


no means skilfully done, at that; though even here the interest of 
the tale is such as to triumph over the bungling rudeness of the 
translator. This version, also, has been lately reprinted by Mr. 
Collier in the work mentioned above. 

These two are the only English forms, of an earlier date than 
the tragedy, in which the story ‘has reached us. But the contem- 
porury references to it are such and so many as to show that it 
must have stocd very bigh in popular favour. JV'or instance, a 
brief argument of the tale is given by Thomas Delapeend in his 
Pleasant Fable of Hermaphroditus and Salmacis, 1565; and Bar- 
nabe Rich, in his Dialogue between Mercury and a Soldier, 1574, 
says that the story was so well known as to he represented on 
tapestry. Allusions to it are also found in The Gorgeous Gallery 
of Gallant Inventions, 1578 ; in A Poor Knight's Palace of Pri- 
vate Pleasure, 1579; and in Austin Saker’s Narbonus, 1530. Af- 
ter this time, such notices become still more frequent and partic- 
ular ; and the Stationers’ books show an entry of “ A new Ballad 
of Romeo and Juliet,” by Edward White, in 1596 ; of which, how- 
ever, nothing has been discovered in modern times. 

This popularity was doubtless owing in a large measure to the 
use of the story in dramatic furm. We have already found that 
Brooke had seen it on the stage before 1562. That so great and 
general a favourite should have been suffered to leave the boards 
after having once tried its strength there, is nowise probable : so 
that we may presume it to have been kept at home ou the stage 
in one shape or another, till Shakespeare took it in hand, and so 
far eclipsed all who had touched it before, that their labours were 
left to perish. 

Whether Shakespeare availed himself of any preceding drama 
on the subject, we are of course without the means of knowing. 
Nor, in fact, can we trace a connection between the tragedy and 
any other work except Brooke’s poem. That he made consider- 
able use of this, is abundantly certain, as may be seen from divers 
verbal resemblances set forth in our notes. That he was aequaint- 
ed with Paynter’s version, is indeed more than probable ; but we 
ean discover no sign of his having resorted to it for the matter of 
his scenes. as the play has nothing in common with this, but what 
this also has in common with the poem. On the other hand, be- 
sides the verbal resemblances set forth iv our notes, the play agrees 
with Brooke in divers particulars where Brooke differs from Payn- 
ter. The strongest instance, perhaps, of this is in the part of the 
Nurse, which is considerably extended in the poem: especially, 
she there endeavours, as in the play, to persuade Juliet into the 
marriage with Paris; of which there is no trace in the prose ver- 
sion. Moreover, the claracter of the Nurse has in the poem a 
dash of original humour, approaching somewhat, though not mach, 
towards the Poet’s represeutation of her. As regards the inci- 
dents, the only differences worth noting between the poem and the. 


8 . ROMEO AND JULIET. 


play are in the death of Mercutio, and in the meeting of Romeo 
and Paris, and the death of the latter, at the tomb of Juliet. 

The play was first printed in 1597, with a title-page reading as 
follows : “ An excellent-conceited Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet: 
As it hath been often, with great applause, played publicly, by the 
Right Honourable the Lord of Hunsdon his Servants. London: 


Printed by John Danter. 1597.” Here we have one point worth 


special noting. Until the accession of James, the company to 
which Shakespeare belonged were, as we have repeatedly seen, 
called «the Lord Chamberlain’s Servants.” Henry Lord Huns- 
don, Lord Chamberlain, died on the 22d of July, 1596. George, 
the successor to his title, did not immediately succeed to the office : 
this was conferred on Lord Cobham, who held it till his death, in 
March, 1597; and the new Lord Hunsdon did not become Lord 
Chamberlain till the 17th of April. It was only during this inter- 
‘val that the company in question were known as the Lord Huns- 
don’s Servants. Malone hence concludes that the play was first 
performed between July, 1596, and April, 1597; but this 1s by no 
means certain; it merely proves that the play was printed during 
that period: for, however the company may have been designated 
at the first acting of the play, they would naturally have been 
spoken of in the title-page as the Lord Hunsdon’s Servants, if 
they were so known at the time of ‘the printing. 

Another question, that may as well be disposed of here, is, 
whether the first issue of Romeo and Juliet was authentic and 
complete, as the play then stood ; which question is best answered 
by Mr. Collier. “This edition,” says he, “is in two different types, 
and was probably executed in haste by two different printers. It 
has been generally treated as an authorised impression from an 
authentic manuseript. Such, afier the most careful examination, 
is not our opinion. We think that the manuscript used by the 
printer or printers was made up, partly from portions of the play 
as it was acted, but unduly obtained, and partly from notes taken 
at the theatre during representation. Our principal ground for 
this notion is, that there is such great inequality in different scenes 
and speeches, and in some places precisely that degree and kind 
of imperfectness, which would belong to manuscript prepared from 
defective short-hand notes. We do not of course go the length 
of contending that Shakespeare did not alter and improve the play, 
subsequent to its earliest production on the stage 5; but merely that 
the quarto of 1597 does not contain the tragedy as it was originally 
represented.”’ 


The next issue of the play was in a quarto pamphlet of 46 — 


leaves, the title-page reading thus : “The most excellent and Jam- 
entable Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet, newly corrected, augment- 
ed, aud amended: As it hath been sundry times publicly aeted by 
the Right Honourable the Lord Chamberlain his Servants. J.on- 
don: Printed by Thomas Creede for Cuthbert Burby, and are to 


INTRODUCTION. 9 


be sold at his shop near the Exchange. 1599.” There was a 
third quarto issue in 1609, which was merely. a reprint of the fore- 
going, save that in the title- -page we have, “acted by the King’s 
Majesty’s Servants at the Globe,” and, “ Printed for John Smeth- 
wick, and are to be sold at his shop in St. Dunstan’s Churchyard, 
in Fleet-street, under the Dial.’” There was also a fourth edition 
in quarto, undated, but probably issued between 1609 and 1623, 
The folio of 1623 gives it as the fourth in the division of Trage- 
dies, and without any marking of the acts and scenes, save that 
at the beginning we have, “Actus Primus. Sccna Prima.” 
The folio, though omitting several passages found in the quarto 
of 1609, is shown, by the repetition of certain typographical errors, 
to have been printed from that copy. In our text, as in that of 
most modern editions, the quarto of 1599 is taken as the basis, 
and the other old copies drawn upon for the correction of errors, 
and sometimes for a choice of readings ; in both which respects 
the quarto of 1597 is of great value, Our variations from the 
second quarto are duly specified in the notes. 

As may well be supposed, the second issue evinces a considers 
ably stronger and riper authorship than the first ; for of course the 
Poet would hardly proceed to rewrite the Bias until he thought 
that he could make important changes for the better. How aed 
the play was “augmented” may be judged from the*fact that in 
Steevens’ reprint of the editions of 1597 and 1609, both of which 
are in the same volume and the same type, the first occupies only 
73 pages, the other 99. The augmentations are much more im- 
portant in quality than in quantity ; and both these and the cor- 
rections show a degree of judgment and tact hardly consistent 
with the old notion of the Poet having been a careless writer ; 
though it is indeed much to be regretted that he did not carry his 
older and severer hand into some parts of the play, which he left 
in their original state. In our notes will be found a few passages 
— especially Juliet’s speech on taking the sleeping-draught, in Act 
iv. sc. 3, and Romeo’s speech just before he swallows the poison, 
in Act v, se. 3,—as they stand in the quarto of 1597; from which 
the reader may form some judgment of hadifierenact between the 
original and amended copies in respect of quality. ‘The same may 
be said of Juliet’s soliloquies in Act ii. se. 5, and in Act iil. se. 23 
which, particularly the latter, are comparatively nothing, as given 
in the first edition. 

The date more commonly assigned for the writing of this trage- 
dy is 1596. This is allowing only a space of about two years 
between the writing and rewriting of the play ; and we fully agree 
with Knight and Verplanck, that the second edition shows such a 
measure of progress in judgment, in the cast of thought, and in 
dramatic power, as would naturally infer a much longer interval. 
And the argument derived from this circumstance is strengthened 


10 ROMEO AND JULIET. 


by another piece of internal evidence. The Nurse, in reckoning 
up the age of Juliet, has the following: 


“On Lammas-eve at night shall she be fourteen 5 
That shall she, marry: I remember it well. 
’Tis since the earthquake now eleven years 5 
And she was wean’d, —I never shall forget it, — 
Of all the days of the year, upon that day. 
Shake, quoth the dove-house: ’twas no need, I trow, 
To bid me trudge. 
And since that time it is eleven years 5 
For then she could stand alone; nay, by the rood, 
She could have run and waddled all about ; 
For even the day before she broke her brow.” 


This passage was first pointed out by Tyrwhitt as probably res 
ferring to a very memorable event thus spoken of by the Englisk 
chronicler of that period: «On the 6th of April, 1580, being Wednes- 
day in Easter week, about 6 o’clock toward evening, a sudden 
earthquake happening in London, and almost generally throughout 
all England, caused such amazedness among the people as was 
wonderful for the time.’””? There are indeed discrepancies in what 
the Nurse says, that more or Jess dash the certainty of the allusion. 
First, she says that Juliet was not weaned, then, proud of “bear- 
ing a brain,” gets entangled in her reminiscent garrulity, and at 
Jast ties up in the remembrance that she could talk and « waddle 
all about ;”’ but yet she sticks to the “eleven years.” It is not, 
so much, therefore, to what was in ber thoughts, as to what was 
in theirs for whom the speech was written, that we must look for 
the bearing of the allusion. 

Now, at the time of the event in question, the great clock at 
Westminster, and divers other clocks and bells struck of them- 
selves with the shaking of the earth: the lawyers supping in the 
Temple ran from their tables and out of the halls, with the knives 
in their hands: the people assembled at the theatres rushed forth 
into the fields, lest the galleries should fall: the roof of Christ 
church near Newgate-market was so shaken, that a stone dropped 
out of it, killing two persons, it being sermon time: chimneys were 
toppled down, and houses shattered. All which circumstances 
were well adapted to keep the event fresh in popular remembrance ; 
and it was with this remembrance, most likely, that the Poet main- 
ly concerned himself. We give the rest of the argument in the 
words of Knight: “Shakespeare knew the double world in which 
an excited audience lives; the half belief in the world of poetry 
amongst which they are placed during a theatrical representation, 
and the half consciousness of the external world of their ordinary 
life. The ready disposition of every audience to make a tran- 
sition from the scene before them to the scene in which they ordi« 


INTRODUCTION. 11 


narily move, is perfectly well known to all who are acquainted 
with the machinery of the drama. In the case before us, even if 
Shakespeare had not this principle in view, the association of the 
English earthquake must have been strongly in his mind, when he 
made the Nurse date from an earthquake. Without reference to 
the circumstance of Juliet’s age, he would naturally, dating from 
the earthquake, have made the date refer to the period of his writ- 
ing the passage, instead of the period of Juliet’s being weaned. 
But, according to the Nurse’s chronology, Juliet had not arrived 
at that epoch in the lives of children, till she was three years old. 
The very contradiction shows that Shakespeare had another ob- 
ject in view than that of making the Nurse’s chronology tally with 
the age of her nursling.” 

This of course would throw the original writing of the play back 
to the year 1591, or thereabouts, and so give ample time for the 
growth of mind indicated by the additions and improvements of 
the second issue. However, we do not regard the argument from 
the Nurse’s speech as conclusive; for, even granting the Poet to 
have had his thoughts on the particular earthquake in question, it 
does not follow that he would have made the Nurse perfectly ac- 
eurate in her reckoning of time. It may be worth observing, in 
this connection, that there appears some little remembrance, one 
way or the other, between the play and Daniel’s Complaint of 
Rosamond, published in 1592. The passage from Daniel is given 
in Act v. sc. 3, note 7; so that it need not be quoted here. It 
will be seen, from the preceding note, that, except in one slight 
particular, the resemblances both of thought and expression are 
not found in the oldest copy of the play. Nor even in tbat par- 
ticular is the resemblance so close as to infer any more acquaint- 
ance than might well enough have been formed by the ear ; and 
Daniel was a man of theatrical tastes. So that this does not 
necessarily make against 1591 as Shakespeare’s true date ; though 
whether Daniel first improved upon him, and then he upon Daniel, 
or whether the original writing of the play was not till after the 
printing of the poem, cannot with certainty be affirmed. 

At all events, we are quite satisfied, from many, though for the 
most part undefinable, tricks of style, that the tragedy in its origi- 
nal state was produced somewhere between 1591 and 1595, ‘The 
east of thought and imagery, but especially the large infusion, not 
to say preponderance, of the lyrical element, naturally associates 
it to the same stage of art and authorship which gave us A Mid- 
summer-Night’s Dream. The resemblance of the two plays in 

‘these respects is too strong and clear, we think, to escape any 
studious eye, well-practised in discerning the Poet’s different 
styles. Andta diligent comparison of Romeo and Juliet with, for 
example, the poetical scenes in the First Part of King Henry IV., 
which was published in 1598, will suffice for the conclusion that 
the former must have been written several years before the latter, 


2 


j2 ROMEO AND JULIET. 


We have seen that nearly all the incidents of the tragedy were 
borrowed, the Poet’s invention herein being confined to the duel 
of Mercutio and Tybalt, and the meeting of Romeo and Paris at 
the tomb. In the older English versions of the story, there is a 
general fight between the partizans of the two houses ; when, af- 
ter many have been killed and wounded on both sides, Romeo 
comes in,tries in vain to.appease with gentle words the fury of 

*Tybalt, and at last kills bim in self-defence. What a vast gain 
of dramatic life and spirit is made by Shakespeare’s change in 
this point, is too obvious to need insisting on. Much of a certain 
amiable grace, also, is reflected upon Paris from the circumstances 
that occasion his death; and the character of the heroine is pro- 
portionably raised by the beauty and pathos thus shed around 
her second lover; there being, in the older Versions, a cold and 
selfish policy in his love-making, which dishonours both himself 
and the object of it. The judicious bent of the Poet’s invention is 
the more apparent in these particulars, taat in the others he did but 
reproduce what he found in Brooke’s poem. Moreover, the inci- 
dents, throughout, are disposed and worked out with all imagi- 
nable skill for dramatic effect ; so that what was before a compar- 
atively lymphatic and lazy narrative is made redundant of ani- 
mation and interest. 

In respect of character, too, the play has little of formal origi- 
nality beyond Mercutio and the Nurse; though all are indeed set 
forth with a depth and vigour and clearness of delineation to 
-which the older versions of the tale can make no pretension. It 
scarce need be said, that the two characters named are, in the 
Poet’s workmanship, as different as can well be conceived from 
any thing that was done to his hand. But what is most worthy 
of remark, here, is, that he just inverts the relation between the 
incidents and the characterisation, using the former merely to sup- 
port the latter, instead of being supported by it. Before, the per- 
sons served but as a sort of frame-work for the story 3 here, the 
story is made to serve but as canvas for the portraiture of char- 
acter. So that, notwithstanding the large borrowings of incident 
and character, the play, as a whole, has eminently the stainp of an 
original work; and, which is more, an acquaintance with the 
sources drawn upon nowise diminishes our impression of its origi- 
nality. ; 

Before proceeding further, we must make some abatements 
from the indiscriminate praise which this drama has of late re- 
ceived. For criticism, in its natural and just reaction from the 
mechanical methods formerly in vogue, has run to thé opposite 
extreme of unreserved special-pleading, and of bunting out of 
nature after reasons for unqualified approval ; by which course it 
stultifies itself without really helping the subject. Now, we can- 
not deny, and care not to disguise, that in several places this play 
is sadly blemished with ingenious and elaborate affectations. We 


INTRODUCTION. 13 


refer not now to the conceits which Romeo indulges in so freely 
before his meeting with Juliet ; for, in his then state of mind, such 
self centred and fantastical eddyings of thought may be not al- 
together without reason, as proceeding not from genuine passion, 
but rather from the want of it: he may be excused for playing 
with these little smoke-wreaths of fancy, forasmuch as the true 
flame is not yet kindled in his heart. But, surely, this excuse will 
not serve for those which are vented so profusely by the heroine 
even in her most impassioned moments; as, especially, in her 
dialogue with the Nurse in the second scene of Act iii. Yet 
Knight boldly justifies these, calling them “the results of strong 
emotion, seeking to relieve itself by a violent effort of the intel- 
lect, that the will may recover its balance.” Which is either a 
piece of forced and far-fetched attorneyship, or else it is too deep 
for our comprehension. No, no} these things are plain disfigure- 
ments and blemishes, and criticism will best serve its proper end 
by calling them so. And if there be any sufficient apology for 
them, donbiless it is this, — That they grew from the general cus- 
tom and conventional pressure of the time, and were written be-— 
fore the Poet .had by practice and experience worked himself above 
these into the original strength and rectitude of his genius. And 
we submit, that any unsophisticated criticism, however broad and 
liberal, will naturally regard them as the effects of imitation, not 
of mental character, because they are plainly out of keeping with 
the general style of the piece, and strike aguinst the grain of the 
sentiment which that style inspires. 

Bating certain considerable drawbacks on this score, — and the 
fault disappears after Act ili..—the play gives the impression of 
having been all conceived and struck out in the full heat aud glow 
of youthful passion; as if the Poet’s genius were for the time 
thoroughly possessed with the spirit and temper of the subject, so 
that every thing becomes touched with its efficacy ;— while al the 
same time the passion, though carried to the utmost intensity, is 
every where so pervaded with the light and grace of imagination, 
that it kindles but to ennoble and exalt. For richness of poetical 
colouring,— poured out with lavish hand indeed, but yet so man- 
aged as not to interfere either with the development of character 
or the proper dramatic effect, but rather to heighten them both, — 
it may challenge a comparison with any of the.Poet’s dramas. 

‘It is this intense passion, acting through the imagination, that 
giyes to the play its remarkable unity of effect. On this point, 
Coleridge has spoken with such rare felicity that his words ought 

-always to go with the subject. “That law of unity,” says he, 

“ which has its foundations, not in the factitious necessity of cus- 

tom, but in nature itself, the unity of feeling, is everywhere and 

at all times observed by Shakespeare\im his plays. Read Romeo 

and Juliet : — all is youth and spring ; — youth with its follies, its 

Virtues, its precipitancies ;— spring with its odours, its flowers, 
VOL. X. 2 


14 ROMEO AND JULIET. 


and its transiency;—it is one and the same feeling that com 
mences.goes through, and ends the play. The old men, the Capulets 
and the Montagucs, ate not common old men; they have an eager- 
ness, a heartiness, a vehemence, the effect of spring : with Romeo, 
his change of passion, his sudden marriage, and his rash death, 
are all the effects of youth ;— whilst in Juliet love has all that is 
tender and melancholy in the nightingale, all that is voluptuous in 
the rose, with whatever is sweet in the freshness of spring ; but it 
ends with a long deep sigh, like the last breeze of the Italian 
evening. This unity of feeling and character pervades every 
drama of Shakespeare.” 

In accordance with the principles here suggested, we find every 
thing on the run; all the passions of the drama are in the same 
fiery-footed and unmanageable excess : the impatient vehemence 
of old Capulet, the furious valour of Tybalt, the brilliant volubil- 
ity of Mercutio, the petulant loquacity of the Nurse, being all but 
so many symptoms of the reigning irritability and impetuosity. 
Amid this general stress of impassioned life, old animosities are 
rekindled, old feuds have broken out anew; while the efforts of. 
private friendship and public authority to quench the strife only go 
to prove it unquenchable, the same violent passions that have 
caused the tumults being brought to the suppression of them. 
The prevalence of extreme hate serves of course to generate the 
opposite extreme ; out of the most passionate and fatal enmities 
there naturally springs a love as passionate and fatal. With dis- 
positions too gentle and noble to share in the animositie: o rife 
about them, the hearts of the lovers are but rendered thereby the 
more alive and open to impressions of a contrary nature; the 
fierce rancour of their houses only swelling in them the emotions 
that prevent their sympathising with it. 

In this way, both the persons and the readers of the drama are 
prepared for the forthcoming issues: the leading passion, intense 
as it is, being so associated with others of equal intensity, that we 
receive it without any sense of disproportion to nature ; whereas, 
if cut out of the harmony in which it exists, it would seem over- 
wrought and incredible. ‘Thus the Poet secures continuity of im- 
pression, and carries us smocthly along through all the aching 
joys and giddy transports of the lovers, by his manner of dispos- 
ing the objects and persons about them. And he does this wit 
so much ease as not to betray his exertions ; his means are hidden 
in the skill with which he uses them ; and we forget the height to 
which he soars, because he has the strength of wing to, bear us 
along with him, or rather gives us wings to rise with him of our- 
selves. 

Not the least considerable feature of this drama is, how, by 
divers little showings, we are let into the general condition of life 


where the scene is laid, and how this again is made to throw light — 


on the main action. We see before us a most artificial and une 


INTRODUCTION. 15 


healthy state of society, where all the safety-valves of nature are 
closed up by an oppressive conventionality, and where the better 
passions, being clogged down to their source, have turned their 
strength into the worse ; men’s antipathies being the more violent, 
because no free play is given to their sympathies. Principle and . 
impulse are often spoken of as opposed to each other; and, as 
men are, such is indeed too often the case: but in ingenuous na- 
tures and in well-ordered societies the two grow forth together, 
each serving to unfold and deepen the other, so that principle gets 
‘warmed into impulse, and impulse fixed into principle. When 
such is the case, the state of man is at peace and unity ; other- 
wise, he is a house divided against itself, where principle and im- 
pulse strive each for the mastery, and sway by turns ; headloag 
and sensual in his passions, cunning and selfish in his reason. 

Now, this fatal divorce of reason and passion is strongly ap- 
parent in the condition of life here reflected. The gencrous int- 
pulses of nature are overborne and stifled by a discipline of self- 
ishness. Coldly calculative where they ought to be impassioned, 
people are of course blindly passionate where they ought to be 
deliberate and coo]. Even marriage is plainly stripped of its 
sacredness, made an affair of expediency, not of affection, inso- 
much that a previous anion of hearts is discouraged, lest it should 
interfere with a prudent union of hands. So that we have a state 
of society, where the hearts of the young are, if possible, kept 
sealed against all deep and strong impressions, and the develop- 
ment of the nobler impulses foreclosed by the icy considerations 
of interest and policy. 

Amidst this heart-withering refinement. the hero and the heroine 
stand out the unschooled and unspoiled creatures of native sense 
and sensibility. Art bas tried its utmost upon them, but nature 
has proved too strong for it: in the silent creativeness of youth 
their feelings have insensibly matured themselves ; and they come 
before us glowing with the warmth of natural sentiment, with sus- 
ceptibilities deep as life, and waiting only for the kindling touch 
of passion. So that they exemplify the simplicity of nature 
thriving amidst the most artificial manners: nay, they are the 
more natural for the excess of art around them; as if nature, 
driven from the hearts of others, had taken refuge in theirs. 

Principle, however, is as strong in them as passion; they have 
the purity as well.as the impulsiveness of uature; and because 
they are free from immodest desires, they therefore put forth no 
angelic pretensions. Idolizing each other, they would, however, 
make none but permitted offerings. Not being led by the con- 
ventionalities of life, they therefore are not to be misled by them; 
as their hearts are joined in mutual love, so their hands must be 
joined in mutual honour ; for, while loving’ each other with a love 
as boundless as the sea, they at the same time love in each other 
whatsoever is precious and heavenly in their unsoiled imaginations. 


/ 


16 ROMEO AND JULIET. 


Thus their fault Jies not in the nature of their passion, but in its 
excess, — that they love each other in a degree that is due only to 
their Maker ; but this is a natural reactica from that idolatry of 
interest and of self which pervades the rest of society, turning 
marriage into merchandise, and sacrificing the holiest instincts of 
nature to avarice, ambition, and pride. 

The lovers, it is true, are not much given to reflection, because 
this is a thing that cannot come to them legitimately but by ex- 
perience, which they are yet without. Life lies glittering with 
golden hopes before them, owing all its enchantment, perhaps, to 
distance: if their bliss seems perfect, it is only because their 
bounty is infinite; but such bounty and such bliss “ may not with 
mortal man abide.” Bereft of the new life they have found in 
each other, nothing remains for them but the bitter dregs from 
which the wine has all evaporated; and they dash to earth the 
stale and vapid draught, when it has lost all tbe spirit that caused 
it to foam and sparkle before them. Nevertheless, it is not their 
passion, but the enmity of their houses, that is punished in their 
death ; and the awful lesson read in their fate is against that bar- 
barism of civilization, which makes love excessive by trying to 
exclude it from its rightful place in life, and which subjects men 
to the just revenges of nature, because it puts them upon thwart- 
ing her noblest purposes. Were we deep in the ways of Prov- 
idence, we might doubtless anticipate from the first, that these two 
beings, the pride and hope of their respective friends, would, even 
because themselves most innocent, fall a sacrifice to the guilt of 
their families ; and that in and through their death would be pun- 
ished and healéd those fatal strifes and animosities which have 
made it at once so natural and so dangerous for them to love. 

It has been aptly remarked, that the hero and heroine of this 
play, though in love, are not love-sick. Romeo, however, is 
something love-sick before his meeting with Juliet. His seeming 
love for Rosaline is but a matter of fancy, with which the heart 
has little or nothing to do. That the Poet so meant it, is plain 
from what is said about it in the Chorus at the end of Acti. Ac- 
cordingly, it is airy, affected, and fantastical, causing him to think 
much of his feelings, to count over his sighs, and play with lan- 
guage, as a something rather generated from within than inspired 
from without: his thoughts are not so much on Rosaline or any 
thing he has found in her, as on a figment of his own mind, which 
he has baptised into her name and invested with her form. This 
is just the sort of love with which people often imagine them- 
selves about to die, but which they always manage to survive, and 
that, without any farther harm than the making them somewhat 
ridiculous. Romeo’s love is a thing infinitely different. A mere 
idolater, Juliet converts him into a true worshipper ; and the fire 
of his new passion burns up the old idol of his fancy. Love 
works a sort of regeneration upon him: his dreamy, sentimenta 


INTRODUCTION. The La 


- fancy giving place to a passion that interests him thoroughly in 
an external object, all his fine energies are forthwith tuned into 
' harmony and eloquence, so that he becomes a true man, with 
every thing clear and healthy and earnest about him. As the 
Friar suggests, it was probably from an instinctive sense of his 
self-delusion, and that he made love by rote and not by heart, 
that Rosaline rejected his suit. The dream, though, has the effect 
of preparing him for the reality, while the contrast between them 
heightens our appreciation of the latter. 

Hazlitt pronounces Romeo to be Hamlet in love; than which 
he could not well have made a greater mistake. In all that most 
truly constitutes character, the two, it seems to us, have nothing 
incommon. ‘To go no further, Hamlet is all procrastination, Ro- 
‘meo all precipitancy: the one reflects away the time of action, 
and loses the opportunity in getting ready for it; the other, pliant 
to impulse, and seizing the opportunity at once, or making it, acts 
first, and then reflects on what he has done, not on what he has to 
do. With Hamlet, it is a necessity of nature to think ; with Ro- 
meo, to love: the former, studious of consequences, gets entan- 
gled with a multitude of conflicting passions and purposes ; the 
Jatter, absorbed in one passion and one purpose, drives right ahead 
regardless of consequences. It is this necessity of loving that, 
until the proper object appears, creates in Romeo an object for 
itself: hence tte love-bewilderment in which he first comes before 
us. Which explains and justifies the suddenness and vehemence 
of his passion, while the difference between this and his fancy- 
sickness amply vindicates him from the reproach of inconstancy. 

Being of passion all compact, Romeo of course does not gen- 

_ eralize, nor give much heed to abstract truth : intelligent indeed 
of present objects and occasions, he does not, however, study to 
shape his feelings or conduct by any rules: he therefore sees no 
use of philosophy in his case, unless it can make a Juliet 3 nor 
does he care to hear others speak of what they do not feel. He 
has no life but passion, and passion lives altogether in and by its 
object: therefore it is that he dwells with such wild exaggeration 

on the sentence of banishment. Thus his love, by reason of its 
excess, exalling a subordinate into a sovereign good, defeats its 
own security aud peace. 

Yet there is a sort of instinctive rectitude in his passion, which 
makes us rather pity than blame its excess ; and we feel that death 
comes upon him through it, not for*it. We can scarce conceive 
any thing more full of manly sweetness and gentleness than his 
character. Love is the only thing wherein he seems to lack self- 
control, and this is the very thing wherein self-control is least a 

Virtue. He will risk his life for a friend, but he will not do a mean 
thing to save it; has no pride and revenge to which he would sac- 
rifice others, but has bigh and brave affections to which he will not 
shrink from sacrificing himself. Thus even in his resentments he 

Q* 2 


Is ROMEO AND JULIET. 


is in noble contrast with those about him. His heart is so pré- 
occupied with generous thought as to afford no room for those 
furious transports which prove so fatal in others: where their 
swords jump in wild fury from their scabbards, his sleeps quietly 
by his side ; but then, as he is very hard to provoke, so is he very 
dangerous when provoked. 

Mr. Hallam —a man who weighs his words well before pro- 
nouncing them — gives as his opinion, that “it is impossible to 
place Juliet among the great female characters of Shakespeare’s 
creation.”’? Other critics of high esteem, especially Mrs. Jameson, 
take a different view ; but this may result, in part, from the rep- 


resentation being so cbaraedi not to say overcharged, with poetic’ 


warmth and brillianey, as to hinder a cool and steady judgment 
of the character. For the passion in which Juliet lives is most 
potently infectious ; one can scarce venture near enough to see 
what and whence it is, without falling under its influence; while 
in her case it is so fraught with purity and tenderness, and self- 
forgetting ardour and constancy, and has so much, withal, that 
challenges a respectful pity, that the moral sense does not easily 
find where to fix its notes of reproof. And if in her intoxication 
of soul and sense she loses whatsoever of reason her youth and 
inexperience can have gathered, the effect is breathed forth with 
an energy and elevation of spirit, and in a transporting affluence 
of thought and imagery, which none but the sterfiest readers can 
well resist, and which, after all, there may not be much virtue in 
resisting. 

We have to confess, however, that Juliet appears something 
better as a heroine than as a woman, the reverse of which com- 
monly holds in the Poet’s delineations. But she is a real heroine, 
in the best sense of the term; her womanhood being developed 
through her heroism, not eclipsed or obscured by it. Wherein 
she differs from the general run of tragie heroines, who act as if 
they knew not how to be beroic, without unsexing themselves, and 
becoming something mannish or viraginous: the trouble with them 
being, that they set out with a special purpose to be heroines, and 
study to approve themselves such; whereas Juliet is surprised 
into heroism, and acts the heroine without knowing it, simply be- 
cause it is in her to do so, and, when the occasion comes, she can- 
not do otherwise. 3 

It is not till the marriage with Paris is forced upon her, that 
the proper heroism of her nature displays itself. All her feelings 
as a woman, a lover, and a wife, are then thoroughly engaged ; 
and because her heart is all truth, therefore she cannot but choose 
rather to die “an unstain’d wife to her sweet love,’ than to live 


on any other terms. To avert what is to her literally an infinite 


evil, she appeals imploringly to her father, her mother, and the 
Nurse, in succession ; nor is it till she is cast entirely on her own 
strength that she finds herself sufficient for herself. There is 


INTRODUCTION. 19 


something truly fearful in the resolution and energy of her dis- 
course with the Friar; yet we feel that she is still the same soft, 
tender, gentle being whose breath was lately so rich and sweet 
with words of love. When told the desperate nature of the rem- 
edy, she rises to a yet higher pitch, her very terror of the deed 
inspiring her with fresh energy of purpose. And when she comes 
to the performance, she cannot indeed arrest the workings of her 
imagination, neither can those workings shake her resolution ; on 
the contrary, in their reciprocal action each adds vigour and in- 
tensity to the other, the terrific images which throng upon ber ex- 
cited fancy developing within her a strength and courage to face 
them. In all which there is certainly much of the heroine, but 
then the heroism is the free, spontaneous, unreflecting outcome of 
her native womanhood. 

Tt is well worth noting, with what truth to nature the different 
qualities of the female character are in this representation distrib- 
uted. Juliet has both the weakness and the strength of woman, 
and she has them in the right, that is, the natural places. For, if 
she appears as frail as the frailest of her sex in the process of 
becoming a lover, her frailty ends with that process: weak in 
yielding to the first touch of passion, all her strength of character 
comes out in courage and constancy afterwards. Thus it is in 
the cause of the wife that the greatness proper to her as a woman 
transpires. Moore, in his Life of Byron, speaks of this as a pe- 
culiarity of the Italian women ; but surely it is nowise peculiar to 
them, save that they may have it in a larger measure than others. 
For, if we mistake not, the general rule of women everywhere is, 
that the easiest to fall in love are the hardest to get out of it, and 
at the same time the most religiously tenacious of their honour 
‘in it, 

It is very considerable that Juliet, though subject to the same 
necessity of loving as Romeo, is nevertheless quite exempt from 
the delusions of fancy, and therefore never gets bewildered with 
a love of her own making. The elements of passion in her do 
not, it is against her nature that they should, act in such a way as 
to send her in quest of an object: indeed they are a secret even 
to herself, she suspects not their existence, till the proper object 
appears, because it is the inspiration of that object that kindles 
them into effect. — Her modesty, too,-is much like Romeo’s hon- 
our ; that is, it is a living attribute of her character, and not merely 
a form impressed upon her manners from without. She therefore 
does not try to conceal or disguise from herself the impulses of her 
nature, because she justly regards them as sanctified by the re- 

_ligion of her heart. On this point, especially with reference to 
her famous soliloquy at the beginning of the second scene in Act 
iii., we leave her in the hands of Mrs. Jameson 3; who, with a rare 
gift to see what is right, joins an equal felicity in expressing what 
she sees, “Let it be remembered,” says she, “ that in this speech 


ah eg 


20 ROMEO AND JULIET. 


Juliet is not supposed to be addressing an audience, nor even @ 
confidante ; and I confess I have been shocked at the utter want 
of taste and refinement in those who, with coarse derision, or in a 
spirit of prudery yet more gross and perverse, have dared to 
comment on this beautiful ‘Hymn to the Night,’ breathed out by 
Juliet in the silence and solitade of her chamber. She is think- 
ing aloud; it is the young heart ‘triamphing to itself in words.’ 
In the midst of all the vehemence with which she calls upon the 
night to bring Romeo to her arms, there is something so almost 
infantine in her perfect simplicity, so playful and fantastic in the 
imagery and language, that the charm of sentiment and innocence 
is thrown over the whole; and her impatience, to use her own ex- 
pression, is truly that of ‘a child before a festival, that hath new 
robes and may not wear them.’ ” 

The Nurse is in some respects another edition of Mrs. Quickly, 
though in a different binding. The character has a tone of reality 
that almost startles us on a first acquaintance. She gives the im- 
pression of a literal transcript from actual life ; which is doubtless 
owing in part to the predominance of memory in her mind, caus* 
ing her to think and speak of things just as they occurred ; as in 
her account of Juliet’s age, where she cannot go on without bring- 
ing in all the accidents and impertinences which stand associated 
with the subject. And she has a way of repeating the same thing 
in the same words, so that it strikes us as a fact cleaving to her 
thoughts, and exercising a sort of fascination over them: it seems 
scarce possible that any but a real person should be so enslaved 
to actual events. 

This general passiveness to what is going on about her natural- 
ly makes her whole character “smell of the shop.” And she has. 
a certain vulgarized air of rank and refinement, as if, priding her- 
self on the confidence of her superiors, she had caught and assim- 
ilated their manners to her own vulgar nature. In this mixture 
of refinement and vulgarity, both elements are made the worse for 
being together ; for, like all those who ape their betters, she ex- 
aggerates whatever she copies ; or, borrowing the proprieties of 
those above her, she turns them into their opposite, because she 
has no sense of propriety. Without a particle of truth, or honour, 
or delicacy ; one to whom life has no sacredness, virtue no beauty, 
love no holiness ; a woman, in short, without womanhood ; she 
abounds, however, in serviceable qualities ; has just that low ser- 
vile prudence which at once fits her to be an instrument, and makes 
her proud to be used as such. Yet she acts not so much from a 
positive disregard of right as from a Jethargy of conscience; or 
as if her soul had run itself into a sort of moral dry-rot through 
a Jeak at the mouth, 

Accordingly, in her basest acts she never dreams but that she 
is a pattern of virtue. And because she is thus unconscious and, 
as it were, innocent of her own vices, therefore Juliet thinks hes 


INTRODUCTION. ee; 


free from them, and suspects not but that beneath her petulant, 
vulgar loquacity she has a vein of womanly honour and sensibility. 
For she has, in her way, a real affection for Juliet; whatsoever 
would give pleasure to herself, that she will do any thing to com- 
pass for her young mistress 5 and, until Jove and marriage become 

_ the question, there has never been any thing to disclose the essen- 
tial oppugnancy of their natures. When, however, in her noble 
agony, Juliet appeals to the Nurse for counsel, and is met with the 
advice to marry Paris, she sees at once what her soul is made of; 
that her former praises of Romeo were but the offspring of a sen- 
sual pruriency easing itself with talk ; that in her long life she has 
gained only that sort of experience which works the debasement 
of its possessor; and that she knows less than nothing of love 
and marriage, because she has worn their prerogatives without any 
feeling of their sacredness. 

Mercutio is one of the instances which strikingly show the ex- 
cess of Shakespeare’s powers above his performances. Though 
giving us more than any other man, he still seems to have given 
ebut a small part of himself; for we see not but he could have gone 

' on indefinitely revelling in the same “exquisite ebullience and over- 
flow” of life and wit which he has started in Mercutio. As seek- 
ing rather to instruct us with character than to entertain us with 
talk, he lets off just enough of the latter to disclose the former, 
and then stops, leaving the impression of an inexhaustible abun- 
dance withheld to give scope for something better. From the na- 
ture of the subject, he had to leave unsatisfied the desire which in 
Mercutio is excited. Delightful as Mercutio is, the Poet valued 
and makes us value his room more than his company. It has 
been said that he was obliged to kill Mercutio, lest Mercutio should 
kill him. And certainly it is not easy to see. how he could have 
kept Mercutio and Tybalt in the play without spoiling it, nor how 
he could have kept them out of it without killing them: for, so 
long as they live, they seem bound to have a chief hand in what- 
soever is going on about them ; and they cannot well have a hand 
in any thing without turning it, the one into a comedy, the other 
jnto a butchery. The Poet, however, so manages them and their 
fate as to aid rather than interrupt the proper interest of the piece 5 

_ the impression of their death, strong as it is, being overcome by 
the sympathy awakened in us with the living. 

Mercutio is a perfect embodiment of animal spirits acting in and 
through the brain. So long as the life is in him his: blood mast 
dance, and so long as the blood dances the brain and tongue must 
~ play. His veins seem filled with sparkling champagne. Always 
revelling in the conscious fulness of his resources, he pours out 
and pours out, heedless whether he speaks sense or nonsense 5 
nay, his very stumblings seem designed as triumphs of agility; 
he studies, apparently, for failures, as giving occasion for further 
trials, and thus serving at once to provoke his skill and to set it 


pay 2 ROMEO AND JULIET. 


off. Full of the most companionable qualities, he often talks 
loosely indeed, but not profanely ; and even in his loosest talk 
there is a subtilty and refinement both of nature and of breeding, 
that mark him for the prince of good fellows. Nothing could more 
finely evince the essential frolicsomeness of his composition, than 
that, with his ruling passion strong in death, he should play the 
wag in the face of his grim enemy, as if to live and to jest were 
the same thing with him. 

Of Mercutio’s wit it were vain to attempt an analysis. From 
a fancy as quick and aerial as the Aurora Borealis, the most unique 
and graceful combinations come forth with almost inconceivable 
facility and felicity. If wit consists in a peculiar briskness, air- 
iness, and apprehensiveness of spirit, catching, as by instinct, the 
most remote and delicate affinities, and putting things together 
most unexpectedly and at the same time most appropriately, it 
can hardly be denied that Mercutio is the prince of wits, as well 
as of good fellows. 

We have always felt a special comfort in the part of Friar Lau- 
rence. How finely his tranquillity contrasts with the surroundings 
agitation! And how natural it seems that he should draw lessons 
of tranquillity from that very agitation! Calm, thoughtful, benev- 
olent, withdrawing from the world, that he may benefit society the 
more for being out of it, his presence and counsel in the play are 
as oil poured, yet poured in vain, on troubled waters. Sympa- 
thising quietly yet deeply with the very feelings in others which 
in the stillness of thought he has subdued in himself, the storms 
that waste society only kindle in him the sentiments that raise him 
above them; while his voice, issuing from the heart of humanity, 
speaks peace, but cannot give it, to the passions that are raging 
around him, 

Schlegel has remarked with his usual discernment on the skill 
with which the Poet manages to alleviate the miracle of the sleep- 
ing-potion ; and how, by throwing an air of mysterious wisdom 
round the Friar, he renders us the more apt to believe strange 
things concerning him}; representing him as so ecnjunctive and 
private with nature, that incredulity touching what he does is in a 
great measure forestalled by impressions of reverence for his char- 
acter. “How,” says he, “does the Poet dispose us to believe 
that Father Laurence possesses such a secret? He exhibits him 
at first in a garden, collecting herbs, and descanting on their won- 
derful virtues. ‘The discourse of the pious old man is full of deep 
meaning: he sees everywhere in nature emblems of the moral 
world ; the same wisdom with which he looks through her has also 
made him master of the human heart. In this way, what would 
else have an ungrateful appearance, becomes the source of a great 
beauty.” 

Much fault has been found with the winding-up of this play, that 
it does not stop with the death of Juliet. Looking merely to the 


TE roe um rede Fae 


re he! Pay as ai 4 


Phe 


INTRODUCTION. 23 


__uses of the stage, it might indeed be better so; but Shakespeare 
wrote for humanity as well as, yea, rather than, for the stage. 
And as dhe evil fate of the lovers springs from the bitter feud of 
their houses and from a general stifling of nature under a hard 
crust of artificial manners, he wisely represents it as reacting upon 
and removing the cause. We are thus given to see and feel that 
they have not suffered in vain; and the heart has something to 
mitigate and humanise its over-pressure of grief. The absorbing, 
devouring selfishness of society generates the fiercest rancour be- 
tween its }#iding families, and that rancour issues in the death of 
the very members through whom they had thought most to advance 
their rival pretensions; earth’s best and noblest creatures are 
snatched away, because, by reason of their virtue, they can best 
afford to die, and because, for the same reason, their death will be 
most bitterly deplored. The good old Friar indeed thought that 
by the marriage of the lovers the rancour of their houses would 
be healed. But a Wiser than he knew that the deepest touch of 
sorrow was required to awe and melt their proud, selfish hearts ; 
that nothing short of the most afflicting bereavement, together with 
the feeling that themselves had both caused it and deserved it, 
could teach them rightly to “prize the breath they share with hu- 
man kind,” and remand them to the impassioned attachments of 
nature. Accordingly, the hatred that seemed immortal is buried 
in the tomb of the faithful lovers; families are reconciled, society 
renovated, by the storm that has passed upon them ; the tyranny 
of selfish custom is rebuked and broken up by the insurrection of 
nature which itself has provoked ; tears flow, hearts are softened, 
hands joined, truth, tenderness, and piety inspired, by the noble 
example of devotion and self-sacrifice which stands before them. 
Such is the sad but wholesome lesson to be gathered from the 
heart-rending story of “Juliet and her Romeo.” 


PERSONS REPRESENTED. 


Escauuvs, Prince of Verona. 

Paris, a young Nobleman, his Kinsman. 
MonTaGuE, 
CAPULET, 
An old Man, Uncle to Capulet. 
RomEo, Son to Montague. 
MeERcurTI1O0, Kinsman to Escalus, } Friends to Rontes 
Brenvo tio, Nephew to Montague, 

TyBaLT, Nephew to Lady Capulet. 

Friar LAuRENCE, a Franciscan. 

Friar Joun, of the same Order. 

BALTHAZAR, Servant to Romeo. 

Sampson, 
GREGORY, 
PETER, another Servant to Capulet. 

ABRAM, Servant to Montague. 

An Apothecary. 

Three Musicians. 

Chorus. A Boy, Page to Paris. An Officer. 


Heads of two hostile Houses. 


Servants to Capulet. . 


Lavy MonraevuE, Wife to Montague. 
Lapy Capu et, Wife to Capulet. 
JuLIET, Daughter to Capulet. 

Nurse to Juliet. 


Citizens of Verona; male and female Relations’ to both 
Houses ; Maskers, Guards, Watchmen, and Attendauts. 


SCENE, during the greater Part of the Play, in Verona ; 
once, in the fifth Act, at Mantua. 


THE TRAGEDY 


OF 


ROMEO AND JULIET. 


PROLOGUE: 


Chorus. 'Two households, both alike in dignity, 
In fair Verona where we lay our scene, 
_ From ancient grudge break to new mutiny, 
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean. 
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes 
A pair of star-cross’d lovers take their life ; 
Whose misadventur’d piteous overthrows 
.— Do, with their death, bury their parents’ strife. 
The fearful passage of their death-mark’d love, 
And the continuance of their parents’ rage, 
Which, but their children’s end, nought could re- 
move, 
Is now the two hours’ traffic of our stage ; 
The which if you with patient ears attend, 
What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend. 


1 This Prologue is in all the quartos, though with considerable 
_ variations in that of 1597. It was omitted in the folio, for reasons 
unknown. The old copies represent it as spoken by Chorus ; 
____ which means, no doubt, that it fell to the same performer as the 
Chorus at the end of Act i. H. 


VOL. X.. 3 - 


At 


26 ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT I. 


AGHA 


SCENE I. A public Place. 


Enter Sampson and Grecory, armed with Swords 
and Bucklers. 


Sam. GREGORY, o’my word, we’ll not carry 
coals.! WN 

Gre. No, for then we should be colliers. 

Sam. I mean, an we be in choler, we’ll draw. 

Gre. Ay, while you live, draw your neck out 
o’the collar. 

Sam. I strike quickly, being mov’d. 

Gre. But thou art not quickly moy’d to strike. 

Sam. A dog of the house of Montague moves me. 

Gre. To move is to stir, and to be valiant is to 
stand; therefore, if thou art mov’d, thou runn’st 
away. 

Sam. A dog of that house shall move me to 
stand. I will take the wall of any man or maid of 
‘Montague’s. 

Gre. That shows thee a weak slave; for the 
weakest goes to the wall. 

Sam. True; and therefore women, being the 
weaker vessels, are ever thrust to the wall :—there- 


' To carry coals is to put up with insults. Anciently, in great 
families, the scullious, turnspits, and carriers of wood and coals 
were esteemed the very lowest of menials. Such attendants upon 
the royal household, in progresses, were called the bluck-guard ; 
and hence the origin of that term. Thus in May Day, a Comedy 
by Chapman, 1608: « You must swear by no man’s beard but 
your own; for that may-breed a quarrel: above all things, you 
must carry no coals.” And in Ben Jonson’s Every Man in his. 
Humour: “ Here comes one that will carry coals ; ergo will hold 
my dog.” See King Henry V., Act iii. se. 2, note 7. 


SC. I. ROMEO AND JULIET. o7 
fore I will push Montague’s men from the wall, and 
thrust his maids to the wall. 

Gre. The quarrel is between our masters, and us 
their men. . 

Sam. *Tis all one; I will show myself a tyrant: 
when I have fought with the men, I will be cruel 
with the maids ;* I will cut off their heads. 

Gre. The heads of the maids? 

San. Ay, the heads of the maids, or their maid- 
enheads ; take it in what sense thou wilt. 

Gre. They must take it in sense, that feel it. 

Sam. Me they shall feel, while [am able to stand 5 
and ’tis known I am a pretty piece of flesh. 

Gre. ’Tis well thou art not fish; if thou hadst, 
thou hadst been poor John.* Draw thy tool; here 

comes two of the house of the Montagues. 


* 


Enter ApraM and BALTHAZAR. 


Sam. My naked weapon is out: quarrel, I will 
back thee. 
Gre. How! “ thy back, and run? 
Sam. Fear me™not. , 
Gre. No, marry: I fear thee! 
_ Sam. Let us take the law of our sides; let them 
begin. 
Gre. I will frown as I pass by, and let them take 
it as they list. ‘ 
2 Such is the reading of the undated quarto; all the other old 
copies have ciril instead of cruel. i: 
3 Poor John is hake, dried and salted, 
4 It should be observed that the partisans of the Montague fam- 
ily wore a token in their hats in order to distinguish them from 
their enemies the Capulets. Hence throughout this play they are 


known at a distance. Gascoigne adverts to this in a Masque writ- 
fen for Viscount Montacute, in 1575: 


“ And for a further proofe, he shewed in hys hat 
Thys token, which the Montacutes did beare always, for that 
They covet to be knowne from Capels.” 


ees ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT I. 


Sam. Nay, as they dare. I will bite my thumb 
at them; which is a. disgrace to them, if they 
bear it.° 

Abr. Do you bite your thumb at us, sir? 

Sam. I do bite my thumb, sir. 

Abr. Do you bite your thumb at us, sir? 

Sam. Is the law of our side, if I say, ay? 

Gre. No. 

Sam. No, sir, I do not bite my thumb at you, sir; 
but I bite my thumb, sir. 

Gre. Do you quarrel, sir? 

Abr. Quarrel, sir? no, sir. 

Sam. If you do, sir, I am for you: I serve as 
good a man as you. | 

Abr. No better. 

Sam. Well, sir. 


Enter BENVOLIO, at a distance. 


Gre. Say, better: here gomes one of my mas- 
ter’s kinsmen.°® 
Sam. Yes, better, sir. 


Abr. You lie. -* 
Sam. Draw, if you be men. — Gregory, remem- 
ber thy swashing blow.’ [ They fight. 


5 This was a common mode of insult, in order to begin a quar- 
rel. Dekker, in his Dead Term, 1608, describing the various 
groups that daily frequented St. Paul’s, says, “ What swearing is 
there, what shouldering, what justling, what jeering, what byting 
of thumbs, to beget quarrels!” And Lodge, in his Wits Miserie, 
1596 : « Behold, next I see Contempt marching forth, giving me 
the fico with his thumbe in his mouthe.” The mode in which this 
contemptuous action was performed is thus described by Cotgrave: 
« Faire la nique: to mocke by nodding or Jifting up of the chinne ; 
or, more properly, to threaten or defie, by putting the thumbe naile 
into the mouth, and with a jerke (from the upper teeth) make it to 
knacke.” 

8 Gregory is a servant of the Capulets: he must therefore mean 
Tybalt, who enters immediately after Benvolio. 

7 All the old copies except the undated quarto have washing Ry 


: ae ks, oe Re a ee ee re 2 NA Oe any | 
PT Neg eS re kL, oe ei 


ae ‘ ’ , 


et 
ceesc.b, ROMEO AND JULIET. 29 


Ben. Part, fools! put up your swords; you 
know not what you do. [Beats down their swords. 


Enter TyBaurT. 


Tyb. What! art thou drawn among these heart- 
less hinds ? 
_ “Turn thee, Benvolio; look upon thy death. 
Ben. I do but keep the peace : put up thy sword, 
Or manage it to part these men with me. 
Tyb. What! drawn, and talk of peace? I hate 
the word, 
_ As I hate hell, all Montagues, and thee. 
Have at thee, coward. [ They fight. 


Enter several Partisans of both Houses, who join the 
Fray; then enter Citizens, with Clubs. 


1 Cit. Clubs, bills, and partizans!* strike! beat 
them down! 
Down with the Capulets! down with the Monta- 
gues ! y 


instead of swashing. The latter is undoubtedly the right word. 
Ben Jonson, in his Staple of News, has the phrase swashing blow. 
-Baret, in his Alvearie, 1580, says that “to swash is to make a 
noise with swords against targets.” See As You Like It, Act i. 
sc. 3, note 8. H. 

8 The old custom of crying out, Clubs, clubs! in case of any 
tumult occurring in the streets of London, has been made familiar 
to most readers by Scott in The Fortunes of Nigel. See As You 
Like It, Act v. sc. 2, note 3.— Bills and partizans were weapons 
used by watchmen and foresters. See As You Like It, Act i. se. 
2, note 5.— This transferring of London customs to an Italian 
city is thus justified by Knight: «'The use by Shakespeare of 
home phrases, in the mouths of foreign characters, was a part of 
his art. It is the same thing as rendering Sancho’s Spanish prov- 
erbs into the corresponding English proverbs, instead of literally 
translating them. The cry of clubs by the citizens of Verona 
expressed an idea of popular movement, which could not have 

_ been conveyed half so emphatically in a foreign phrase.” =H. 
* 


.” "on 


30 ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT I. 


Enter Capuuret, in his Gown ; and Lady CAPULET. 


Cap. What noise is this?— Give me my long 
sword, ho !® 
Lady C. A crutch, a crutch !— Why call you for 
a sword? 
Cap. My sword, I say !— Old Montague is come, 
And flourishes his blade in spite of me. 


Enter Montacue and Lady MONTAGUE. 


Mon. Thou villain Capulet!— Hold me not; let 
me go. 

Lady M. Thou shalt not stir one foot to seek a 
foe. 


Enter the Prince, with Attendants. 


Prin. Rebellious subjects, enemies to peace, 
Profaners of this neighbor-stained steel, — 
Will they not hear!— what ho! you men, you 

beasts, 

That quench the fire of your pernicious rage 
With purple fountains issuing from your veins, 
On pain of torture, from those bloody hands 
Throw your mistemper’d weapons to the ground, 
And hear the sentence of your moved prince.— 
Three civil brawls, bred of an airy word, 
By thee, old Capulet, and Montague, 
Have thrice disturb’d the quiet of our streets 5 
And made Verona’s ancient citizens 
Cast by their grave beseeming ornaments, 
To wield old partizans, in hands as old, 
Canker’d with peace, to part your canker’d hate. 


9 The long sword was used in active warfare ; a lighter, shorter. 
and less desperate weapon was worn for ornament. 


sc. L ROMEO AND JULIET. BY | 


If ever you disturb our streets again, 

Your lives shall pay the forfeit of the peace. 

For this time, all the rest depart away : 

You, Capulet, shall go along with me; 

And, Montague, come you this afternoon, 

To know our further pleasure in this case, 

“To old Free-town, our common judgment-place.” 

Once more, on pain of death, all men depart. 

[Exeunt all but Montacue, Lady Montacve, 

. and BENVOLIO. 

‘Mon. Who set this ancient quarrel new abroach ? — 
Speak, nephew, were you by when it began. 

Ben. Here were the servants of your adversary, 
And yours, close fighting ere I did approach : 

I drew to part them ; in the instant came 

_ The fiery Tybalt, with his sword prepar’d ; 
Which, as he breath’d defiance to my ears, 

He swung about his head, and cut the winds, 
Who, nothing hurt withal, hiss’d him in scorn. 
While we were interchanging thrusts and blows, 

Came more and more, and fought on part and part, 
Till the prince came, who parted either part. 

10 In Brooke’s poem Frree-town is the name of a castle belong- 
ing to Capulet.— Upon the foregoing part of this scene Coleridge 
has the following : “ With his accustomed judgment, Shakespeare 
has begun by placing before us a lively picture of all the impulses 
of the play ; and, as nature ever presents two sides, one for Her- 
aclitus, and one for Democritus, he bas, by way of prelude, shown 
the Jaugbable absurdity of the evil by the contagion of it reaching 
the servants, who have so little to do with it, but who are under 
the necessity of letting the superfluity of sensoreal power fly off 
through the escape-valve of wit-combats, and of quarrelling with 
weapons of sharper edge, all in bumble imitation of their masters. 

Yet there is a sort of unhired fidelity, an owrishness about all this, 
that makes it rest pleasant on one’s feelings. All the first scene, 
down to the conclusion of the Prince's speech, is a motley dance 


of all ranks and ages to one tune, as if the horn of Huon had 
been playing behind the scenes.” BH. 


Oe ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT I. 


Lady M. O! where is Romeo ?—saw you him 
to-day ? 
Right glad | am he was not at this fray. 

Ben. Madam, an hour before the worshipp’d sun 
Peer’d forth the golden window of the east, 

A troubled mind drave me to walk abroad ; 

Where, underneath the grove of sycamore 

That westward rooteth from the city’s side, 

So early walking did I see your son. 

‘Towards him I made; but he was ’ware of me, 

And stole into the covert of the wood: 

I, measuring his affections by my own, — 

Which then most sought, where most might not be 
found, 

Being one too many by my weary self,’ — 

Pursued my humour, not pursuing his, 

And gladly shunn’d who gladly fled from me. 

Mon. Many a morning hath he there been seen, 
With tears augmenting the fresh morning’s dew, 
Adding to clouds more clouds with his deep sighs 
But all so soon as the all-cheering sun 
Should in the farthest east begin to draw 
The shady curtains from Aurora’s bed, 
Away from light steals home my heavy son, 
And private in his chamber pens himself; 
Shuts up his windows, locks fair daylight out, 
And makes himself an artificial night. 
Black and portentous must this humour prove, — 
Unless good counsel may the cause remove. 

Ben. My noble uncle, do you know the cause? 


11 The meaning evidently is, that his disposition was, to be in 
solitude, as he could hardly endure even so much company as that 
of himself. Instead of this and the preceding line, the quaito of 
1597 merely has one line, thus: “That most are busied when 
they’re most alone ;”” which reading has been strangely preferred 
by some modern editors. li. 


SC. I. ROMEO AND JULIET. 33 


Mon. I neither know it, nor can learn of him. 
Ben. Have you importun’d him by any means? 
Mon. Both by myself, and many other friends: 

But he, his own affections’ counsellor, 

Is to himself —I will not say, how true— 

But to himself so secret and so close, 

So far from sounding and discovery, 

As is the bud bit with an envious worm, 

Ere he can spread his sweet leaves to the air, 

Or dedicate his beauty to the sun.'? 

Could we but learn from whence his sorrows grow, 

We would as willingly give cure, as know. 


Enter Romeo, at a distance. 


Ben. See, where he comes: So please you, step 
: aside 5 
I'll know his grievance, or be much denied. 
Mon. 1 would, thou wert so happy by thy stay, 
To hear true shrift.— Come, madam, let’s away. 
[Exeunt Monracur and Lady. 
Ben. Good morrow, cousin. 


Rom. Is the day so young? 
Ben. But new struck nine. 
Rom, Ah me! sad hours seem long. 


Was that my father that went hence so fast ? 
Ben. It was. What sadness lengthens Romeo’s 
hours ? 
Rom. Not having that, which, having, makes them 
short. 
Ben. In love? 


12 The old copies have same instead of sun, or sunne, as it was 
formerly written. The happy emendation was made by Theo- 
bald, and is sustained by a passage in Daiiel’s Sonnets, Lo¥4: 


“And whilst thou spread’st unto the rising sunne 
The fairest flower that ever saw the light.” H. 


3 


ft, y e ot ~ 


304 ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT I. 


Rom. Out. 

Ben. Of love? 

Rom. Out of her favour, where I am in love. 

Ben. Alas, that love, so gentle in his view, 
Should be so tyrannous and rough in proof! 

Rom. Alas, that love, whose view is muffled still, 
Should, without eyes, see pathways to his will!” 
Where shall we dine? —O me! what fray was 

here? 
Yet tell me not, for I have heard it all. : 
Here’s much to do with hate, but more with love : —- 
Why then, O brawling love! O loving hate! 
O any thing, of nothing first create! 
O heavy lightness! serious vanity ! 
Misshapen chaos of well seeming forms! 
Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health! 
Still-waking sleep, that is not what it is!— . 
This love feel I, that feel no Jove in this. 
Dost thou not laugh ?™ 


Ben. No, coz, I rather weep. 
Rom. Good heart, at what? 
Ben. At thy good heart’s oppression. 


Rom. Why, such is love’s transgression. — 
Griefs of mine own lie heavy in my breast ; 
Which thou wilt propagate, to have it press’d 


13 That is, should blindly and recklessly think he can surmount 
all obstacles to his will. ’ 

14 This string of antithetical conceits seems absurd enough to 
us; but such was the most approved way of deseribing love in 
Shakespeare’s time, and for some ages before. Petrarch and 
Chaucer used it, and divers old English poets and ballad-makers 
abound init. Perhaps the best defence of the use here made of 
it is, that such wn affected way of speaking not unaptly shows the 
state of Romeo’s mind, that his love is rather self-generated than 
inspired by any object. At all events, as compared with his style 
of speech after meeting with Juliet, it serves to mark the differ 
ence between being love-sick and being in love. H. 


\ 


ar ts ROMEO AND JULIET. 35. 


With more of thine: this love that thou hast shown 
Doth add more grief to too much of mine own. 
Love is a smoke rais’d with the fume of sighs; 
Being purg’d,’’ a fire sparkling in lovers’ eyes ; 
Being vex’d, a sea nourish’d with lovers’ tears: 
What is it else? a madness most discreet, 
A choking gall, and a preserving sweet. 
Farewell, my coz. [ Going. 
Ben. Soft! I will go along: 
An if you leave me so, you do me wrong. 
Rom. Tut! I have lost myself; I am not here: 
This is not Romeo, he’s some other where. 
Ben. Tell me in sadness, who is that you love. 
Rom. What! shall I groan, and tell thee ? 
Ben. Groan! why, no; 
- But sadly tell me who. 
Rom. Bid a sick man in sadness make his will ; 
A word ill urg’d to one that is so ill! 
In sadness,’® cousin, I do love a woman. 
Ben. 1 aim’d so near, when I suppos’d you lov’d. 
Fiom. A right good marks-man ! — And she’s fair 
I love. 
Ben. A right fair mark, fair coz, is soonest hit. 


> 

19 Such is the reading of the old copies. Divers modern 
editions, following Dr. Johnson, change purg’d to urg’d. The 
“change is a good one, if any change were needed. Of course, 
purg’d is purified. Mr. Collier’s celebrated second folio substi- 
tutes puff’d.— As Romeo here resumes his strain of conceits, it 
may be well to quote one or two precedents for it. Thus Wats 
son, in one of his canzonets : 


“ Love is a sowre delight, and sugred griefe, 
A living death, and ever-dying life.” 


And Turberville makes Reason harangue against love thus: 


“A fierie frost, a flame that frozen is with ise ; 
A heavie burden light to beare’; a vertue fraught with vice.” 
H. 
16 In sadness is gravely, in seriqusness. 


{ ees ee 
° i * 


36 ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT I. 


Rom. Well, in that hit, you miss: she'll not be hit 
With Cupid’s arrow: she hath Dian’s wit 3 
And, in strong proof of chastity well arm’d, 
From love’s weak childish bow she lives encharm’d."7 
She will not stay the siege of loving terms, 
Nor bide th’ encounter of assailing eyes, 
Nor ope her lap to saint-seducing gold: 
O! she is rich in beauty; only poor, 
That when she dies, with beauty dies her store.” 
Ben. 'Then she hath sworn that she will still live 
chaste ? 
Rom. She hath, and in that sparing makes huge 
waste 5 
For beauty, starv’d with her severity, 
Cuts beauty off from all posterity. 
She is too fair, too wise; wisely too fair, 
To merit bliss by making me despair : 
She hath forsworn to love; and in that vow 
Do I live dead, that Jive to tell it now. 
Ben. Be rul’d by me; forget to think of her. 
Rom. O! teach me how I should forget to think. 
Ben. By giving liberty unto thine eyes: 
Examine other beauties. 
Rom. "Tis the way 
To call bers, exquisite, in question more.” 
These happy masks”? that kiss fair ladies’ brows, 


17 The first quarto and the folio read uncharmed, which gives a 
sense just the opposiié of that required, Since the time of Rowe, 
the uniform reading has been unharmd. Encharm’d is taken 
from Mr, Collier’s second folio. For this use of charm see Cym- 
veline, Act v. se. 3, note 5. H. 

18 She is poor only, because she leaves no part of her store 
behind her, as with her all beauty will die. 

19 ‘That is, to call her exquisite beauty more into my mind, and 
make it more the subject of cgnversation. Question was often 
used in this sense. 

20 This is probably an allusion to the masks worn by the female 


ee Se Pe or aie 
c yw i. rere. 5 


Sc. Il. ROMEO AND JULIET. 37 


Being black, put us in mind they hide the fair: 
He that is stricken blind cannot forget 
The pr ecious treasure of his eyesight lost. 
Show me a mistress that is passing fair, 
What doth her beauty serve, but as a note 
_ Where I may read who pass’d that passing fair ? 
Farewell: thou canst not teach me to forget. 4 
Ben. Vl pay’that doctrine, or else die in debt. 
[ Exeunt. 


SCENE II. A Street. 


Enter Carutet, Parts, and a Servant. 


Cap. But Montague is bound as well as I, 
In penalty alike ; and ’tis not hard, I think, 
For men so old as we to keep the peace. 
Par. Of honourable reckoning are you both; 
And pity ’tis you liy’d at odds so long. 
But now, my lord, what say you to my suit ? 
Cap. But saying o’er what I have said before : 
‘My child is yet a stranger in the world ; 
She hath not seen the change of fourteen years: 


spectators of the play; unless we suppose that these means no 
more than the. See Measure for Measure, Act iii. se. 4, note 11. 
21 If we are right, from the internal evidence, in pronouncing 
this one of Shakespeare’s early dramas, it affords a strong instance 
of the fineness of his insight into the nature of the passions, that 
Romeo is introduced already love-bewildered. The necessity of 
loving ereates an object for itself in man and woman; and yet 
there is a difference in this respect between the sexes, though oaly 
to be known by a perception of it. It would have displeased us 
if Juliet had been represented as already in love, or as fancying 
herself so: but no one, I believe, ever experiences any shock at 
Romeo’s forgetting his Rosaline, who had been a mere name for 
the yearning of his youthful imagination, and rushing into bis pas- 
sion for Juliet. Rosaline was a mere creation of his fancy 5 and 
we should remark the boastful positiveness of Romeo in a love of 
his own making, which is never shown where love is really near 
the heart. — COLERIDGE. H. 


VOL. X. 4 


38 ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT I. 


Let two more summers wither in their pride, 
Ere we may think her ripe to be a bride. 
Par. Younger than she are happy mothers made. 
Cap. And too soon marr’d are those so early 
married.’ 
Earth hath swallowed all my hopes but she, 
She is the hopeful lady of my earth:* 
But woo her, gentle Paris, get her heart, 
My will to her consent is but a part ; 
An she agree, within her scope of choice 
Lies my consent and fair according voice. 
This night I hold an old accustom’d feast, 
Whereto [ have invited many a guest, 
Such as I love, and you among the store 3 
One more, most welcome, makes my number more. 
At my poor house, look.to behold this night 
Earth-treading stars, that make dark heaven light : 
Such comfort as do lusty young men feel? 
When well-apparell’d April on the heel 
Of limping winter treads, even such delight 


1 So reads the quarto of 1597: all the other old copies have 
made instead of married. ‘There can be little doubt that married 
is right. Puttenham, in his Art of Poesy, quotes the expression 
as proverbial: “ The maid that soon married soon marred is.” 


H. 

2 Fille de terre is the old French phrase for an heiress. Earth 
is put for /ands, or landed estute, in other old plays. 

3 Johnson would read yeomen instead of young men. Others 
think young men to be here used for yeomen, as it sometimes is by 
old writers. The meaning in that case would be, such comfort as 
farmers have at the coming of spring. But there seems to be no 
cause for either supposition. What feelings the young are apt to 
have in the spring, can hardly need explaining, to those who re- 
member their youth. However, the Poet’s 98th Sonnet yields a 
good comment on the text: 


«From you have I been absent in the spring, 
When proud-pied April, dress’d in all his trim, 
Hath put a spirit of youth in every thing, 
That heavy Saturn laugh’d and leap’d with him.” 4. 


‘SC. It ROMEO AND JULIET. 39 


Among fresh female buds shall you this night 
Inherit at my house :* hear all, all see, 
And like her most, whose merit most shall be: 
Which, on more view of many, mine being one, 
May stand in number, though in reckoning none.° 
Come, go with me. —Go, sirrah, trudge about 
Through fair Verona; find those persons out, 
Whose names are written there, [Gives a Paper.] and 
to them say, 
My house and welcome on their pleasure stay. 
[Exeunt CapuLet and Paris. 
Serv. Find them out, whose names are written 
here?°® It is written, that the shoemaker should 
meddle with his yard, and the tailor with his last ; 
_the fisher with his pencil, and the painter with his 
nets: but I am sent to find those persons, whose 
names are here writ, and can never find what names 
the writing person hath here writ. I must to the 
learned :—In good time. 


Enter Benvo.io and Romeo. 


Ben. Tut, man! one fire burns out another’s burn- 
ing, 


4 To inherit, in the language of Shakespeare, is to possess. 

5 Which is here used for who, referring to her. The usage 
was common, as the Bible will show. — By a perverse adherence to 
the quarto of 1597, which reads, « Such amongst view of many,” 
this passage has been made unintelligible. The quarto of 1599 
reads as in the text; evidently meaning, ‘“ Hear all, see all, and 
like her most who has the most merit; her, which, after regarding 
attentively the many, my daughter being one, may stand wnique 
in merit, though she may be reckoned nothing, or held in no esti- 
mation.” The allusion, as Malone has shown, is to the old pro- 
verbial expression, “ One is no number.” ‘Thus in Shakespeare’s 
136th Sonnet : . 

« Among a number one is reckon’d none ; 
Then, in the number let me pass untold.” 

6 The quarto of 1597 adds, “And yet I know not who are writ- 
ten here; I must to the learned to learn of them : that’s as much 
as to say, the tailor,” &c. 


\ 


40 ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT I. 


One pain is lessen’d by another’s anguish ; 

Turn giddy, and be holp by backward turning 5 
One desperate grief cures with another’s languish: 
Take thou some new infection to thy eye, 

And the rank poison of the old will die. 

Kom. Your plantain leaf is excellent for that.” 

Ben. For what, I pray thee 2 

Rom. For your broken shin. 

Ben. Why, Romeo, art thou mad 2 

Rom. Not mad, but bound more than a mad- 

man is: 
Shut up in prison, kept without my food, 
Whipp’d, and tormented, and — Good-den, good 
fellow. 

Serv. God gi’? good den. —I pray, sir, can you 
read ? ; 

Rom. Ay, mine own fortune in my misery. 

Serv. Perhaps you have learn’d it without book: 
but, I pray, can you read any thing you see? 

Rom. Ay, if I know the letters, and the language. 

Serv. Ye say honestly: Rest you merry ! 

fiom. Stay, fellow; I can read. 

[Reads.] Signior Martino, and his wife and daughters ; 
County Anselme, and his beauteous sisters; The lady 
widow of Vitruvio; Signior Placentio, and his lovely 
nieces; Mercutio, and his brother Valentine ; Mine uncle 
Capulet, his wife and daughters ; My fair niece Rosaline ; 
Livia; Signior Valentio, and his cousin Tybalt; Lucio, 
and the lively Helena. 


A fair assembly ! whither should they come ? 


7 The plantain leaf is a blood-stancher, and was formerly ap. 
plied to green wounds. See Love’s Labour’s Lost, Act iii. se. L 
note 10. Soin Albumazar: 


“ Help, Armellina, help! I'm fallen i’the cellar: 
Bring a fresh plantuin-leaf, I’ve broke my shin.” 


SC. IT. ROMEO AND JULIET. Al 


Serv. Up. 
Rom. Whither ? to supper? 
Serv. 'To our house. 
Rom. Whose house ? 
Serv. My master’s. 
Rom. Indeed, I should have ask’d you that before. 
Serv. Now [Il tell you without asking: My mas- 
ter is the great rich Capulet ; and if you be not of 
the house of Montagues, I pray, come and crush a 
cup of wine.” Rest you merry. [ Exit. 
Ben. At this same ancient feast of Capulet’s 
Sups the fair Rosaline, whom thou so lov’st, 
With all the admired beauties of Verona: 
Go thither ; and, with unattainted eye, 
Compare her face with some that I shall show, 
And I will make thee think thy swan a crow. 
‘Rom. When the devout religion of mine eye 
Maintains such falsehood, then turn tears to fires! 
And these, — who, often drown’d, could never die, — 
Transparent heretics, be burnt for lars ! 
One fairer than my Jove! the all-seeing sun 
Ne’er saw her match, since first the world begun. 
Ben. Tut! you saw her fair, none else being by, 
Herself pois’d with herself in either eye : 
But, in that crystal scales,’ Jet there be weigh’d 
Your lady’s love ° against some other maid 
That I will show you, shining at this feast, 
And she shall scant show well, that now shows best. 


8 This expression often occurs in old plays. We have one still 
in ose of similar import: “To crack a bottle.” 

8 So in all the old copies. Rowe changed that to those, and is 
followed in modern editions, except Knight’s. Scales is here used 
in the singular number ; that’s all. \\ ¢@ H. 

10 Heath says, “ Your lady’s love is the love you bear to your 
lady, which, in our language, is commonly used for the lady her- 
self.” Perhaps we should read, ‘ Your ludy-love.” 


4* 


42 ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT Ik 


Roum. Tl go along, no such sight to be shown, 
But to rejoice in splendour of mine own. [Exeunt. 


SCENE III. A Room in Caputet’s House. 


Enter Lady Carver and the Nurse. 
Lady C. Nurse, where’s my daughter? call her 


forth to me. 
Nurse. Now, by my maidenhead at twelve year 
old, 
I bade her come. — What, lamb! what, lady-bird ! — 
God forbid !—where’s this girl ?— what, Juliet ! 


Enter Juuiet. 


Jul. How now! who. calls? 

Nurse. Your mother. 

Jul. Madam, f am here: What is your will ? 

Lady C.. This is the matter.— Nurse, give leave 

awhile ; 

We must talk in secret. — Nurse, come back again: 
I have remember’d me, thou shalt hear our counsel. 
Thou know’st my daughter’s of .a pretty age. 

Nurse. ’Faith, I can tell her age unto an hour. 

Lady C. She’s not fourteen. 

Nurse. I'll lay fourteen of my teeth, 
And yet, to my teen’ be it spoken, I have but four, 


1 Teen is an old word, for sorrow, and is here used as a sort of 
play upon four and fourteen. —In the old copies the speeches of 
the Nurse in this scene are printed as prose. Capel! has the great 
merit of arranging them into verse. —« The character of the Nurse,” 
says Coleridge, “is the nearest of any thing in Shakespeare to a 
direct borrowing from mere observation ; aud the reason is, that 
as in infaney and chitdhood the individual in nature is a represent- 
ative of a class, — just as in describing one Jarch tree you gen- 
eralise a grove of them,—so it is nearly as much so in old age. 
The generalisation is done to the Poet’s hand. Here you have: 


SC. III. ROMEO AND JULIET. 43 


She is not fourteen. How long is it now 
To Lammas-tide? 

Lady C. A fortnight, and odd days. 
Nurse. Even or odd, of all days in the year, 
Come Lammas-eve at night shall she be fourteen. 
Susan and she —God rest all Christian souls !— 

Were of an age. — Well, Susan is with God ; 

She was too good for me. But, as I said, 

On Lammas-eve at night shall she be fourteen ; 
That shall she, marry: I remember it well. 

"Tis since the earthquake now eleven years; 

And she was wean’d, —I never shall forget it, — 
Of all the days of the year, upon that day ; 

For I had then laid wormwood to my dug, 

Sitting in the sun under the dove-house wall: 

My lord and you were then at Mantua. — 

Nay, I do bear a brain: ?— but, as I said, 

When it did taste the wormwood on the nipple 

Of my dug, and felt it bitter, pretty fool, 

To see it tetchy, and fall out with the dug! 
Shake, quoth the dove-house: twas no need, I trow, 
To bid me trudge. 

And since that time it is eleven years ; 

For then she could stand alone; nay, by the rood, 
She could have run and waddled all about ; 

For, even the day before, she broke her brow: 


the garrulity of age strengthened by the feelings of a long-trusted 
servant, whose sympathy with the mother’s affections gives her 
privileges and rank in the household. And observe the mode of 
connection by accident of time and place, and the childlike fond- 
ness of repetition in a second childhood, and also that happy, bum- 
ble ducking under, yet constant resurgence against, the check of 
her superiors.” H. 

2 The nurse means to boast of her retentive faculty. To bear 
a brain was to possess much mental capacity. Thus in Marston’s 
Datech Courtezan: “ My silly husband, alas! knows nothing of it; 
’tis I that must beare a braine for all.” 


Bt og a 


44 ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT. T: 


And then my husband— God be with his soul! 
"A was a merry man—took up the child: 
“Yea,” quoth he, «dost thou fall upon thy face ? 
Thou wilt fall backward, when thou hast more wit; 
Wilt thou not, Jule?” and, by my holy-dam, 
The pretty wretch left crying, and said, « Ay.” 
To see, now, how a jest shall come about ! 
I warrant, an I should live a thousand years, 
I never should forget it: «Wilt thou not, Jule?” 
quoth he ; 
And, pretty fool, it stinted,’ and said, « Ay.” 
Lady C. Enough of this: I pray thee, hold thy 
peace. 
Nurse. Yes, madam: Yet I cannot choose but 
laugh, 
To think it should leave-crying, and say, «Ay:” 
And yet, I warrant, it had upon its brow 
A bump as big as a young cockrel’s stone, 
A perilous knock ; and it cried bitterly. 
“Yea,” quoth my husband, « fall’st upon thy face ? 
Thou wilt fall backward, when thou com’st to age ; 
Wilt thou not, Jule?” it stinted, and said, g¢ Ay.” 
Jul. And stint thou too, I pray thee, nurse, say I. 
Nurse. Peace, I have done. God mark thee to 
his grace ! 
Thou wast the prettiest babe that e’er I nurs’d: 
An I might live to see thee married once, 
I have my wish. 
Ladu C. Marry, that marry is the very theme 
T came to talk of.— Tell me, daughter Juliet, 
How stands your disposition to be married ? 


3 To stint is to stop. Baret translates “Lachrymas suppri- 
mere, to stinte weeping ;” and “to stinte talke,” by ‘sermones 
restinguere.”” So Ben Jonson in Cynthia’s Revels: “ Stint thy 
babbling tongue, fond Echo.” 


SC. III. ROMEO AND JULIET. 45 


Jul. It is an honour that I dream not of. 
Nurse. An honour! were not I thine only nurse, 
T would say thou hadst suck’d wisdom from thy teat. 
Lady C. Well, think of marriage now; younger 
than you, 
Here in Verona, ladies of esteem, 
Are made already mothers: by my count, 
I was your mother much upon these years 
That you are now a maid. Thus, then, in brief: 
The valiant Paris seeks you for his love. 
Nurse. A man, young lady! lady, such a man, 
As all the world — Why, he’s a man of wax.’ 
Lady C. Verona’s summer hath not such a flower. 
Nurse. Nay, he’s a flower; in faith, a very flower. 
Lady C. What say you? can you love the gen- 
tleman ? 
This night you shall behold him at our feast: 
Read o’er the volume of young Paris’ face, 
And find delight writ there with beauty’s pen; 
Examine every married lineament,° 
And see how one another lends content ; 
And what obscur’d in this fair volume lies, 
Find written in the margin of his eyes.” 


4 That is, as well made as if he had been modelled in wax. So 
in Wily Beguiled: « Why, he is a man as one should picture him 
in wax.” So Horace uses “ Cerea brachia,”’ waxen arms, for 
arms well shaped. 

5 Thus the quarto of 1599. The quarto ‘of 1609 and the folio 
read, “every several lineament.” We have, “ The unity and maz- 
ried calm of states,” in Troilus and Cressida. And in his eighth 
Sonnet: 


«If the true concord of well-tuned sounds, 
By unions married, do offend thine ear.” 


6 ‘The comments on ancient books Were generally printed in 
the margin. Horatio says, in Hamlet, “1 knew you must be 
edified by the margent.’”’ So in the Rape of Lucrece: 


«« But she that never cop’d with stranger eyes 
Could vick no meaning from their parling looks, 


46 ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT L 


This precious book of love, this unbound lover, 
To beautify him, only lacks a cover. 
The fish lives in the sea ;7 and ’tis much pride, 
For fair without the fair within to hide: 
That book in many’s eyes doth share the glory, 
That in gold clasps locks in the golden story ; 
So shall you share all that he doth possess, 
By having him, making yourself no less. 
Nurse. No less? nay, bigger: women grow by 
men. 
Lady C. Speak briefly, can you like of Paris’ 
love ? 
Jul. Vl look to like, if looking liking move: 
But no more deep will I endart mine eye,® 
Than your consent gives strength to make it fly. 


Enter a Servant. 


Serv. Madam, the guests are come, supper serv’d 
up, you'call’d, my young lady ask’d for, the nurse 
curs’d in the pantry, and every thing in extremity. 
I must hence to wait ; I beseech you, follow straight. 


Nor read the subtle shining secrecies 
Writ in the glassy margent of such books.” 


This speech is full of quibbles. The unbound lover js a quibble 
on the binding of a book, and the binding in marriage; and the 
word cover is a quibble on the Jaw phrase for a married woman, 
JSemme couverte. 

7 It is not quite clear what is meant by this. Dr. Farmer ex- 
plains it, « The fish is not yet caught ;’’ and thinks there is a ref- 
erence to the ancient use of fish-skins for book-covers. It does 
not well appear what this meaning can have to do with the con- 
text. The sense apparently required is, that the fish is hidden, 
within the sea, as a thing of beauty within a beautiful thing. Ma- 
lone thinks we should read, “ The fish lives in the shell ;” and he 
adds that “the sea cannot be said to be a beautiful cover toa 
fish, though a shell may.”” — This whole speech and the next are 
wanting in the quarto of 1597. 4 

$ The quarto of 1597 reads, « engage mine eye,” 


SC. 1V. ROMEO AND JULIET. 47 


Lady C. We follow thee. — Juliet, the county 


stays. 
Nurse. Go, girl, seek happy nights to happy days. 
; [ Exeunt. 


SCENE IV. A Street. 


Enter Romeo, Mercutio, BENvoutio, with five or 
siz Maskers, Torch-Bearers, and Others. 


Rom. What! shall this speech be spoke for our 
excuse ! 
Or shall we on without apology ? 
Ben. The date is out of such prolixity.’ 
We'll have no Cupid hood-wink’d with a scarf, 
Bearing a Tartar’s painted bow of lath, 
Scaring the ladies like a crow-keeper ;* 
Nor no without-book prologue, faintly spoke 
After the prompter, for our entrance :* 


In King Henry VIII., where the king introduces himself at 
the entertainment given by Wolsey, he appears, like Romeo and 
his companions, | in a mask, and sends a messenger before with an 
apology for his intrusion. This was a custom observ ed by those 
who came uninvited, with a desire to conceal themselves, for the 
sake of intrigue, or to enjoy the greater freedom of conversation. 
Their entry on these occasions was always prefaced by,some speech 
in praise of ihe beauty of the ladies, or the generosity of the en- 
tertainer ; and to the prolixity of such introductions it is probable 
Romeo is made to allude. In Histriomastix, 1610, a man exe 
presses his wonder that the maskers enter without any compliment : 
« What, come they in so blunt, without device?” Of this kind 
of masquerading there is a specimen in Timon, where Cupid pre- 
cedes a troop of ladies with a speech. 

2 The Tartarian bows resemble in their form the old Roman or 
Cupid’s bow, such as we see on medals and bas-relief. Shake- 
speare uses the epithet to distinguish it from the English bow, 
whose shape is the segment of a circle. — A crow-keeper was simply 
a scare-crow. See King Lear, Act iv. s¢.6, note 11. 

3 This and the preceding lines are found only in the quarto of 
1597. Of course there is an allusion to some of the stage prace 
tices of the Poet’s time. H. 


48 ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT 1s 


But, let them measure us by what they will, 
We’ll measure them a measure, and be gone. 
Rom. Give me a torch:* I am not for this am 
bling 5 . 
Being but heavy, I will bear the light. 
Mcr. Nay, gentle Romeo, we must have you 
dance. — 
Rom. Not I, believe me: You have dancing shoes, 
With nimble soles; I have a soul of ijead, 
So stakes me to the ground, I cannot move. 
Mer. You are a lover: borrow Cupid’s wings, 
And soar with them above a common. bound. 
Rom. I am too sore enpierced with his shaft, 
To soar with his light feathers ; and so bound, 
I cannot bound a pitch above dull woe:? 
Under love’s heavy burden do I sink. 
Mer. And, to sink in it, should you burden love ; 
Too great oppression for a tender thing. 
Rom. Is love a tender thing? it is too rough, 
Too rude, too boisterous; and it pricks like thorn. 
Mer. If love be rough with you, be rough with 
love ; 
Prick love for pricking, and you beat love down. — 
Give me a case to put my visage in: 
[Putting on a Mask. 
A visor for a visor !— what care I, 
What curious eye doth quote deformities 1° 
Here are the beetle-brows, shall blush for me. - 


4 A torch-hearer was a constant appendage to every troop of 
maskers.  T'o hold a torch was anciently no degrading office. 
Queen Elizabeth’s gentlemen pensioners attended her to Cam- 
oridge, and held torches while a play was acted before her in the 
Chapel of King’s College on a Sunday evening. 

5 Milton thought it not beneath the diguity ae his task fo use 
a similar quibble in Paradise Lost, Book iv.: «At one slight 
yound he overleap’d all Lownd.”” H. 

6 Quote was often used for observe or notice. — Brooke’s poem 


Sc. IV. ~ ROMEO AND JULIET. 49 


Ben. Come, knock, and enter; and no sooner in, 
But every man betake him to his legs. 

Rom. A torch for me: let wantons, light of heart, 
Tickle the senseless rushes with their heels ;7 
For I am prov-rb’d with a grandsire phrase, — 
Pll be a candle-holder, and look on :8 
The game was ne’er so fair, and I am done. 

Mer. Tut! dun’s the mouse, the constable’s own 

word.® 


furnished the following hint towards the Mercutio of the play 3 
otherwise the character is wholly original : 


“ At thone syde of her chayre her lover Romeo, 

And on the other syde there sat one cald Mercutio 3 

A courtier that eche where was highly had in pryce, 

For he was coorteous of hjs speche, and pleasant of devise. 

F.ven as a lyon would emong the lambs be bolde, 

Such was emong the bashfull maydes Mercutio to beholde. 

With frendly gripe he ceasd fayre Juliets snowish hand : 

A gyft he had that Nature gave him in bis swathing band, 

That frosen mountayn yse was never halfe so cold, 

As were his hands, thopgh nere so neer the fire he did them 
holde.” H. 


7 It has been before observed that the apartments of our an- 
cestors were strewed with rushes, and so was the ancient stage. 

8 To hold the candle is a common proverbial expression for be 
ing an idle spectator. Among Ray’s proverbial sentences we have 
«“ A good candle-holder proves a good gamester.” This is th 
«“ grandsire phrase’ with which Romeo is proverbed. There ° 
another old maxim alluded to, which advises to give over wher 
the game is at the fairest. 

9 Dun is the mouse is a proverbial saying of vague signification, 
alluding to the colour of the mouse; but frequently employed with 
no other intent than that of quibbling on the word done. Why it 
is attributed to a constable we know not. So in The Two Merry 
M.lkmaids, 1620: « Why, then, ’tis done, and dun’s the mouse, and 
utdone all the courtiers.” To draw dun out of the mire was a 
rural pastime, in which dum meant a dun horse, supposed to be 
stuck in the mire, and sometimes represented by one of the per- 
sons who played, at others by a log of wood. Mr. Gifford has 
described the game, at which he remembers often to have played, 
in ai note to Ben Jonson’s Masque of Christmas: “A log of wood 
is brought into the midst of the room; this is dun (the cart horse) 
and a ery is raised that he is stuck in the mire. ‘I'wo of the com- 


VOL. X. 5 4 


50: ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT I. 


If thou art dun, we’ll draw thee from the mire 
Of this save-reverence love,’ wherein thou stick’st 
Up to the ears. — Come, we burn day-light, ho!” 

Rom. Nay, that’s not so. 

Mer. I mean, sir, in delay 
We waste our lights in vain, like lamps by day. 
Take our good meaning; for our judgment sits 
Five times.in that, ere once in our five wits.” 

Rom. And we mean well in going to this mask, 
But tis no wit to go. 


Mer. Why, may one ask ? 

Rom. I dreamt a dream to-night. 

Mer. And so did I. 

Rom. Well, what was yours ? 

Mer. That dreamers often lie. 

Rom. In bed, asleep, while they do dream things 
true. 

Mer. O! then, I see, queen Mab hath been with 
you. 


13 


She is the fairies’ midwife ;*° and she comes 


pany advance, either with or without ropes, to draw him out. After 
repeated attempts, they find themselves unable to do it, and call 
for more assistance. The game continues till all the company 
take part in it, when dwn is extricated of course ; and the merri- 
ment arises from the awkward and affected efforts of the rusties 
to lift the log, and sundry arch contrivances to let the ends of it 
fall on one another’s toes.” 

10 The quartos of 1599 and 1609 have, “ Or save you reverence 
love ;” the folio, « Or save your reverence love.” The correc- 
tion is derived from the quarto of 1597, H. 

11 That is, use a candle when the sun shines; an old proverbial 
phrase for superfluous actions in general. See The Merry Wives 
of Windsor, Act ii. sc. 1, note 3. H. 

1< The quartos of 1599 and 1609 read «fine wits.” Malone 
made the correction. — In the second line before, the folio has, 
“lights, lights, by day,” instead of, «like lamps by day.” 4H. 

“13: The fairies’ midwife does not mean the midwife fo the fairies, 
but that she was the person among the fairies whose department 
it was ta delive: the fancies of sleeping men of their dreams, those 


SC. IV. ROMEO AND JULIET. 51 


In shape no bigger than an agate-stone 

On the fore-finger of an alderman, 

Drawn with a team of little atomies 

Over men’s noses as they lie asleep: ' 

Her wagon-spokes made of long spinners’ legs ; 

The cover, of the wings of grasshoppers ; 

The traces, of the smallest spider’s web ; 

The collars, of the moonshine’s watery beams: 

Her whip, of cricket’s bone; the lash, of film: 

Her wagoner, a small gray-coated gnat, 

Not half so big as a round little worm 

Prick’d from the lazy finger of a maid:'* 

Her chariot is an empty hazel-nut, 

Made by the joiner squirrel, or old grub, 

Time out of mind the fairies’ coach-makers. 

And in this state she gallops night by night 

Through lovers’ brains, and then they dream of 
love : 

On courtiers’ knees, that dream on courtesies 
straight : 

O’er lawyer’ s fingers, who straight dream on fees :' 

O’er ladies’ lips, who straight on kisses dream ; 

Which oft the angry Mab with blisters plagues, 

Because their breaths with sweet-meats tainted are. 

Sometime she gallops o’er a courtier’s nose, 

And then dreams he of smelling out a suit: 


children of an idle brain. When we say the king’s judges, we a0 
not mean persons who judge the king, but persons appointed py 
him to judge his subjects. —STEEVENS. 

14 So all the old copies except the first quarto, which has 
Athwart instead of Over. The metrical arrangement of this 
speech is found only in the quarto of 1597; the other old copies 


printing it all as prose except the last four lines. H. 
19 Maid is from the first quarto; the other old copies reading 
man. The next three lines are not in the first quarto. H. 


16 This line also is wanting in the quarto of 1597, which has 
lawyer’s lap instead of courtier’ s nose in the fourth line below. 
H. 


52 ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT I. 


And sometime comes she with a tithe-pig’s tail, 
Tickling a parson’s nose as ’a lies asleep ; 
Then dreams he of another benefice: 
Sometime she driveth o’er a soldier’s neck, 
And then dreams he of cutting foreign throats, 
Of breaches, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades, 
Of healths five fathom deep; and then anon 
Drums in his ear, at which he starts and wakes, 
And, being thus frighted, swears a prayer or two, 
And sleeps again. This is that very Mab, 
That plats the manes of horses in the night ;*7 
And bakes the elf-locks in foul sluttish hairs, 
Which, once untangled, much misfortune bodes. 
This is the hag, when maids lie on their backs, 
That presses them, and learns them first to bear, 
Making them women of good carriage. 
This, this is she — 

Rom. Peace, peace! Mercutio, peace! 
Thou talk’st of nothing. 


17 This alludes to a singular superstition, not yet forgotten in 
some parts of the continent. It was believed that certain malig- 
nant spirits assumed occasionally the likenesses of women clothed 
in white ; that in this character they sometimes haunted stables in 
the night, carrying in their hands tapers of. wax, which they 
dropped on the horses’ manes, thereby plaiting them into inextri- 
cable kuots, to the great annoyance of the poor animals, and 
the vexation of their masters. ‘There is a very ancommon old 
print, by Hans Burgmair, relating to this subject. A witch enters 
the stable with a lighted torch; and, previously to the operation 
of entangling the horse’s mane, practises her enchantments on the 
groom, who is lying asleep on his back, and apparently influenced 
by the night-mare. ‘The belamites or elf-stones were regarded as 
charms against the last-mentioned disease, and against evil spirits 
of all kinds.— The next line, “ And bakes the elf-locks in foul 
sluttish hairs,” seems to be unconnected with the preceding, and 
to mark a superstition which, as Dr. Warburton has observed, may 
have originated from the plica Polonica, which was supposed to 
be the operation of the wicked elves ; whence the clotted hair was 
called elf-locks, or elf-knots. ‘Thus Edgar talks of “ elfing all his 
hair in knots.” — Douce. H. 


eS ee se 


SC. IV. ROMEO AND JULIET. 53 


Mer. ° True, I talk of dreams, 
Which are the children of an idle brain, 
Begot of nothing but vain fantasy ; 
Which is as thin of substance as the air; 
And more inconstant than the wind, who wooes 
Even now the frozen bosom of the north, 
And, being anger’d, puffs away from thence, 
Turning his face to the dew-dropping south.’® 
Ben. This wind, you talk of, blows us from our- 
selves: 
Supper is done, and we shall. come too late. 
Rom. I fear, too early; for my mind misgives, 
Some consequence, yet hanging in the stars, 
Shall bitterly begin his fearful date 
With this night’s revels; and expire the term 
Of a despised life,’’ clos’d in my breast, 
By some vile forfeit of untimely death : 


18 Face, in this line, is from the quarto of 1597; the other old 
copies having side, which Mr. Collier’s second folio changes to 
tide. — Coleridge has the following on Mercutio: ««O! how shall 
I describe that exquisite ebullience and overflow of youthful life, 
wafted on over the laughing waves of pleasure and prosperity, as 
a wanton beauty that distorts the face on which she knows her 
lover is gazing enraptured, and wrinkles ber forehead in the tri- 
umph of its smoothness? Wit ever wakeful, fancy busy and pro- 
creative as an insect, courage, an easy mind that, without cares 
of its own, is at once disposed to laugh away those of others, and 
yet to be interested in them,—these and all congenial qualities, 
melting into the common copula of them all, the man of rank and 
the gentleman, with all its excellences and all its weaknesses, cons 
stitute the character of Mercutio!” H. 

19 This way of using expire was not uncommon in the Poet’s 
time. So in Daniel’s Complaint of Rosamond : 


“ Thou must not think thy flow’r can always flourish, 
And that thy beauty will be still admir’d ; 
But that those rays which all these flames do nourish, 
Cancell’d with time, will have their date expir’d.” H. 


‘ 5* 


Orewa “S - 


54 ROMEO AND JULIET. ACTH. 


” 
But He, that hath the steerage of my course, 
Direct my sail !?° —On, lusty ¢ gentlemen. 
Ben. Strike, drum.”' [ Exeunt. 


SCENE V.' A Hall in Capu.tet’s House. 


Musicians waiting. Enter Servants. 


1 Serv. Where’s Potpan, that he helps not to 


take away? he shift a trencher!* he scrape a 


trencher ! 

2 Serv. When good manners shall lie all in one 
or two men’s hands, and they unwash’d too, ’tis a 
foul thing. 

1 Serv. Away with the joint-stools, remove the 
court-cupboard,*® look to the plate. — Good thou, 
save me a piece of marchpane ;* and, as thou lovest 
me, let the porter let in Susan Grindstone, and 
Nell. — Antony! and Potpan! , 

2 Serv. Ay, boy; ready. 


20 So in the first quarto; the other old copies have suit instead 
of sail. H. 

21 Here the folio adds: “ They march about the stage, and 
serving men come forth with their napkins.” 

1 The opening of this scene, down to the entrance of Capulet, 
is not in the quarto of 1597. H. 

2 To shift a trencher was technical, ‘Trenchers were used in 
Shakespeare’s time and long after by persons of good fashion and 
quality. 

3 The court cupboard was the ancient sideboard: it was a cum 
brous piece of furniture, with stages or shelves gradually receding, 
like stairs, to the top, whereon the plate was displayed at festivals. 
They are ‘mentioned in many old comedies. 

4 Marchpane was a constant article in the desserts of our ances- 
tors.. It was a sweet cake, composed of filberts, almonds, pista- 
chios, pine kernels, and sugar of roses, with a anal portion of 
flour. ‘They were often made i in fantastic forms, ~* 


BC. V. ROMEO AND JULIET. oD 
1 Serv. You are look’d for and call’d for, ask’d 


for and sought for, in the great chamber. 

2 Serv. We cannot be here and there too. — 
Cheerly, boys! be brisk awhile, and the longer 
liver take all. [ They retire behind. 


Enter CaPutet, §c., with the Guests and the 
Maskers. 


Cap. Welcome, gentlemen! ladies, that have their 
toes 
Unplagued with corns, will have a bout with you :° — 
Ah ha, my mistresses! which of you all 
Will now deny to dance? she that makes dainty, 
she, 
Vl swear, hath corns: Am I come near you now? 
You are welcome, gentlemen! I have seen the day, 
That I have worn a visor, and could tell 
A whispering tale in a fair lady’s ear, 
Such as would please ;—’tis gone, ’tis gone, ’tis 
gone. 
You are welcome, gentlemen !— Come, musicians, 
play. 
A hall! a hall!® give room, and foot it, girls. — 
[Music plays, and they dance. 
More lights, ye knaves! and turn the tables up,’ 
And quench the fire, the room is grown too hot.— 
Ah, sirrah! this unlook’d-for sport comes well. 
Nay, sit, nay, sit, good cousin Capulet ; ° 


5 So the first quarto; the other old copies, “will walk about 
with you.” H. 

6 An.exclamation to make room in a crowd for any particular 
purpose, as we now say a ring! a ring! 

7 The ancient tables were flat leaves or boards joined by hinges 
and placed on trestles; when’ they were to be removed they were 
therefore turned up. 

8 Cousin was a common expression for kinsman. 


56 ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT ‘I. 


For you and I are past our dancing days: 
How long is’t now, siice last yourself and I 
Were in a mask? 


2 Cap. By’r lady, thirty years. 
1 Cap. What, man! ’tis not so much, ’tis not se 
much: 


°Tis since the nuptial of Lucentio, 
Come pentecost as quickly as it will, 
Some five-and-twenty years; and then we mask’d. 
2 Cap. ’Tis more, ’tis more: his son is elder, sir ; 
His son is thirty. 
1 Cap. Will you tell me that? | 
His son was but a ward two years ago. 
Rom. What lady’s that, which doth enrich the 
hand 
Of yonder knight ? 
Serv. I know not, sir. 
Rom. O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright! 
It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night 
Like a rich jewel in an Ethiop’s ear ;° 
Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear! 
So shows a snowy dove trooping with crows, 
As yonder lady o’er her fellows shows., 
The measure done, ll watch her place of stand, 
And, touching hers, make blessed my rude hand.'® 
Did my heart love till now ? forswear it, sight! 
I never saw true beauty till this night. 
Tyb. This, by his voice, should bea Montague. — 


8 So read all the old copies till the second folio, which has, 
“ Her beauty hangs upon the cheek of night.” The Poet has a 
similar passage in his 27th Sonnet: 


“ Which, like a jewel hung in ghastly night, 
Makes black night beauteous, and her old face new.” 
H. 
10 So all the old copies except the first quarto, which has happy 
instead of blessed. H. 


SC. Vv. ROMEO AND JULIET. ah 


Fetch me my rapier, boy. — What! dares the slave 
; Come hither, cover’d with an antic face, 
To fleer and scorn at our solemnity ? 
Now, by the stock and honour of my kin, 
To strike him dead I hold it not a sin. 
1 Cap. Why, hownow, kinsman! wherefore storm 
! you so? 
Tyb. Uncle, this is a Montague, our foe ; 
A villain, that is hither come in spite, 
To scorn at our solemnity this night. 
1 Cap. Young Romeo is it? 
Tyb. Tis he, that villain Romeo. 
1 Cap. Content thee, gentle coz, let him alone, 
He bears him like a portly gentleman ; 
And, to say truth, Verona brags of him, 
To be a virtuous and well-govern’d youth. 
I would not for the wealth of all this town, 
Here, in my house, do him disparagement ; 
Therefore be patient, take no note of him: 
It is my will; the which if thou respect, 
Show a fair presence, and put off these frowns, 
An ill-beseeming semblance for a feast. 
Tyb. It fits, when such a villain is a guest: 
Tl not endure him. 
1 Cap. He shall be endur’d : 
What, goodman boy! —I say, he shall ; — go to: 
Am I the master here, or you? go to. 
You'll not endure him !— God shall mend my soul,— 
You’ll make a mutiny among my guests! 
You will set cock-a-hoop! you'll be the man! 
Tyb. Why, uncle, ’tis a shame. 
1 Cap. ‘Go to, go to; 
You are a saucy boy.—Is’t so, indeed ?— 
This trick may chance to scath you;'’—I know 
what. 


x 


Nt That is, do you an injury. 


58 ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT I. 


You must contrary me! marry, ’tis time, — 
Well said, my hearts! — You are a princox; 1? 
goi— . 
Be quiet, or — More light ! more light, for shame ! — 
Pil'make you quiet: What !— Cheerly, my hearts ! 
Tyb. Patience perforce with wilful choler meet- 
ing, | 
Makes my flesh tremble in their different greeting. 
I will withdraw ; but this intrusion shall, 
Now seeming sweet, convert to bitter gall. [Ezit. 
Rom. If I profane with my unworthiest hand 
This holy shrine, the gentle fine is this,!?— 


12 Minshew calls a princox “a ripe-headed young boy,” and 
derives the word from the Latin precox. The more probable » 
derivation is from prime cock ; that is, a cock of prime courage or 
spirit ; hence applied to a pert, conceited, forward person. So in 
the Return from Parnassus : “Your proud university princox 
thinkes he is a man of such merit, the world cannot sufficiently en- 
dow him with preferment.” And in Phaer’s Virgil: « Fyne prin- 
cox, fresh of face, furst uttring youth by buds unshorne.” — Cole- 
ridge remarks upon this dialogue thus: “ How admirable is the 
old man’s impetuosity, at once contrasting, yet harmonized, with 
young Tybalt’s quarrelsome violence! But it would be endless 
to repeat observations of this sort. Every leaf is different on an 
oak tree ; but still we can only say, — our tongues defrauding our 
eyes, — This is another oak-leaf! ” Aggie 

"8 The old copies have sinne instead of fine; an easy misprint 
when sinne was written with a long s; corrected by Warburton, 
— In the preceding line, the first quarto has unworthy instead of 
unworthiest.— The temper of this first interview is very happily 
suggested by the corresponding passage in Brooke’s poem: 


“ As soone as had the knight the vyrgins right hand raugh-, 
Within his trembling hand her left hath Romeus caught. 
Then she with slender band his tender palm hath prest : 
What joy, trow you, was graffied so in Romeus brest ? 
At last, with trembling voyce and shamefast chere, the mayde 
Unto her Romeus tournde, and thus to him she sayde : 
“O, blessed be the time of thy arrivall here.’ 
‘What chaunce (q’ he) unware to me, O lady mine, is hapt, 
That geves you worthy cause my cumming here to blisse 1? 
Fyrst ruthfully she lookd, then sayd with smyling chere, — 
‘ Mervayle no whit, my heartes delight, my only knight and fere; 


SC. V. ROMEO AND JULIET. 59. 


My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand 
To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss. 
Jul. Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too 
much, 
Which mannerly devotion shows in this’; 
For saints have hands that pilgrims’ hands do touch, 
And palm to palm is holy palmers’ kiss. 
Rom. Have not saints lips, and holy palmers, 


too? 

Jul. Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use —in 
prayer. 

Rom. O then! dear saint, let lips do what hands 
do: 


They pray; grant thou, lest faith turn to despair. 
Jul. Saints do not move, though grant for prayers’ 


sake. 
Rom. Then move not, while my prayer’s effect I 
take. [ Kissing her." 


Thus from my lips, by yours, my sin is purg’d. 


Mercutious ysy hande had all to-frozen myne, 
And of thy goodness thou agayne hast warmed it with thyne.’ ” 
: H. 

14 In Shakespeare’s time, the kissing of a lady at a social 
gathering seems not to have been thought indecorous. So, in 
King Henry VIII., we have Lord Sands kissing Anne Boleyn, at 
the supper given by Wolsey.— Mr. R. G. White, in his Shake- 
speare’s Scholar, has the following happy remarks on this bit of 
dialogue : «I have never seen a Juliet upon the stage, who ap- 
peared to appreciate the archness of the dialogue with Romeo in 
this scene. ‘They go through it solemnly, or, at best, with staid 
propriety. They reply literally to all Romeo’s speeches about 
saints and palmers. But it should be noticed that, though this is 
the first interview of the lovers, we do not hear them speak until 
the close of their dialogue, in which they have arrived at a prety 
thorough understanding of their mutual feelings. Juliet makes a 
feint of parrying Romeo’s advances; but, does it archly, and 
knows that he is to have the kiss he sues for. He asks, —‘ Have 
not saints lips, and holy palmers, too?’ The stage Juliet an- 
swers with literal solemnity. But it was not a conventicle at old 
Capulet’s: Juliet was not holding forth. How demure was her 


60 ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT I. 


Jul. Then have my lips the sin that they have 


took. 
Flom. Sin from my lips? O, trespass sweetly 
urg’d! 
Give me my sin again. 
Jul. You kiss by th’ book. 
Nurse. Madam, your mother craves a word with 
‘ you. 
Rom. What is her mother ? 
Nurse. Marry, bachelor, 


Her mother is the lady of the house, 
And a good lady, and a wise and virtuous. 
I nurs’d her daughter, that you talk’d withal: 
I tell you, he that can lay hold of her 
Shall have the chinks. 
Rom. ‘Is she a Capulet ? 
O, dear account! my life is my foe’s debt. 
Ben. Away, begone: the sport is at the best. 
Rom. Ay, so I fear; the more is my unrest. 
1 Cap. Nay, gentlemen, prepare not to be gone; 
We have a trifling foolish banquet towards.’? — 
Is it e’en so?. Why, then I thank you all; 
I thank you, honest gentlemen ;'° good night : — 
More torches here !— Come on, then, Jet’s to bed. 


real answer: ‘ Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use —in prayer.’ 
And when Romeo fairly gets her into the corner, towards which 
she has been contriving to be driven; and says,—‘'Thus from 
my lips, by thine, my sin is purg’d,’ and does put them to that 
purgation ; how slyly the pretty puss gives him an opportunity to 
repeat the penance, by replying, —‘ Then have my lips the sin 
that they have took,’ ” H. 

18 Towards is ready, at hand. A banquet, or rere-supper, as it 
was sometimes called, was similar to our dessert. 


16 Here the quarto of 1597 adds the following : 


“T promise you, but for your company, 
I would have been in bed an hour ago’ 
Light to my chamber, ho!” 


Oe ee Wee ee, ek i 


SC. V. ROMEO AND JULIET. 61 


Ah, sirrah! by my fay, it waxes late ; 
Vl to my rest. [Exeunt all but JuLiet and Nurse. 

Jul. Come hither, nurse: What is yond’ gentle- 

man ? 

Nurse. The son and heir of old Tiberio. 

Jul. What’s he, that now is going out of door? 

Nurse. Marry, that, I think, be young Petruchio. 

Jul. What’s he, that follows there, that would not 

dance? 

Nurse. I know not. 

Jul. Go, ask his name. —If he be married, 

My grave is like to be my wedding bed. 

Nurse. His name is Romeo, and a Montague ; 
The only son of your great enemy. 

Jui. My only love sprung from my only hate! 
Too early seen unknown, and known too late ! 
Prodigious birth of love it is to me, 

That I must love a loathed enemy. 

Nurse. What’s this? what’s this? 

Jul. ‘ A rhyme I learn’d even now 
Of one I dane’d withal. [One calls within, Juuiet! 

Nurse. Anon, anon :— 

Come, let’s away; the strangers all are gone. 
[ Exeunt. 


Enter Cuorus."” 


Now old desire doth in his deathbed lie, 

And young affection gapes to be his heir : 

That fair, for which love groan’d for,’* and would 
die, 


17 This Chorus is not in the quarto of 1597, but is in al] the 
other old copies. 

18 This doubling of a preposition was common with toe old 
writers, and occurs “divers times in these plays. See As You Like 
It, Act ii. se. 7, note 10. — Fuir, in this line, is used as a substan- 
tive, and in the sense of beauty. The usage was common. H. 


VOL. X. 6 


62 ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT II: 


With tender Juliet match’d is now not fair. 

Now Romeo is belov’d, and loves again, 

Alike bewitched by the charm of looks ; 

But to his foe suppos’d he must complain, 

And she steal love’s sweet bait from fearful hooks: 
Being held a foe, he may not have access 

To breathe such vows as lovers use to swear 5 

And she as much in love, her means much less 

To meet her new-beloved any where: 

But passion lends them power, time means, to meet, 
Tempering extremities with extreme sweet. — [ Ezit. 


ACT AIM 


SCENE I. An open Place, adjoining CaPULET’s 
Garden. 


Enter Romeo. 


Rom. Can I go forward, when my heart is here? 
Turn back, dull earth, and find thy centre out. 
[He climbs the Wall, and leaps down within tt. 


Enter Benvo.tio and MERCUTIO. 


‘Ben. Romeo! my cousin Romeo! Romeo! 
Mer. He is wise ; 
And, on my life, hath stolen him home to bed. 
Ben. He ran this way, and leap’d this orchard’ 
wail. 


Call, good Mercutio. 


1 Orchard, from hort-yard, was formerly used for a garden. 
See Julius Cesar, Act ii. se. 1, note 1. H. 


sc. I. ROMEO AND JULIET. 63 


Mer. Nay, [ll conjure too. — 
Romeo! humours! madman! passion! lover! 
Appear thou in the likeness of a sigh; 

Speak but one rhyme, and I am satisfied ; 

Cry but — Ah me! pronounce * but —love and dove; 
Speak to my gossip Venus one fair word, 

One nickname for her purblind son and heir, 
Young auburn Cupid, he that shot so trim,’ 
When king Cophetua lov’d the beggar-maid. — 
He heareth not, he stirreth not, he moveth not 3 
The ape* is dead, and I must conjure him. — 

I conjure thee by Rosaline’s bright eyes, 

By her high forehead and her scarlet lip, 

By her fine foot, straight leg, and quivering thigh, 


2 This is the reading of the quarto of 1597. Those of 1599 
and 1609 and the folio read provant, an evident corruption. The 
folio of 1632 has couply, meaning couple, which has been the read- 

ing of many modern editions. 

' 3 The old copies have “ Abraham Cupid,” which Upton changed 
to “ Adam Cupid,” supposing it to refer to Adam Bell the famous 
archer of the old ballad. The change is adopted in al] modern 
editions excepting Knight’s, who retains Abraham, explaining it 
to mean “the cheat — the ¢‘ Abrabam man’ — of our old statutes.” 
Auburn is proposed by Mr. Dyce, who shows that it was a com- 
mon epithet of Cupid, and was often misprinted abraham and 
Abram. Thus, in Soliman and Perseda,-we have “ abraham- 
colour’d Troion” for Trojan with auwburn-colour’d hair; and in 
Coriolanus, Act ii. sc. 3, “not that our heads are some brown, 
‘some black, some Abram,” where Abram is changed to auburn 
in modern editions, — T'rim is from the first quarto, the other old 
copies having true. That trim-is the right word, is shown by the 
old ballad of “ King Cophetua and the Beggar Maid,” which the 
Poet had in his mind. One stanza is as follows: 


“ The blinded boy, that shoots so trim, 
From heaven down did hie 3 
He drew a dart, and shot at him 
In place where he did lie.’”’, . H. 


4 This phrase in Shakespeare’s time was used as an expression 
of tenderness, like poor fool. 


64 ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT It. 


And the demesnes that there adjacent lie, 
That in thy likeness thou appear to us. 
Ben. An if he hear thee, thou wilt anger him. 
Mer. This cannot anger him: ’twould anger him 
To raise a spirit in his mistress’ circle 
Of some strange nature, letting it there stand 
Till she had laid it, and conjur’d it down ; 
That were some spite : my invocation 
Is fair and honest, and, in his mistress’ name, 
I conjure only but to raise up him. 
Ben. Come, he hath hid himself among these 
trees, : 
To be consorted with the humorous night :° 
Blind is his love, and best befits the dark. 
Mer. If love be blind, love cannot hit the mark. 
Now will he sit under a medlar tree, 
And wish his mistress, were that kind of fruit,. 
As maids call medlars, when they laugh alone. — 
O Romeo! that she were, O, that she were 
An open ef cetera, thou a poprin pear ! — 
Romeo, good night: —T’ll to my truckle-bed 3; 
This field-bed is too cold for me to sleep.° 
Come, shall we go? 


Ben. Go, then; for ’tis in vain 
To seek him here, that means not to be found. 
[ Exeunt. 


5 That is, the hamid, the moist dewy night. | 

6 The truckle-bed or trundle-bed was a bed for the servant or 
page, and was so made as to run under the “ standing-bed,” 
which was for the master. See The Merry Wives of Windsor, 
Act iv. se. 5, note 1.— We are not to suppose that Mercutio slept 
in the servant's bed: he merely speaks of his truckle-bed in con- 
trast with the field-bed, that is, the ground. BK. 


oe @ } ts 


ROMEO AND JULIET. 65 


SCENE II. Caputer’s Garden. 


Enter Romeo. 


Rom. We jests at scars, that never felt a wound. — 
[JuLier appears above, at a Window. 

But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks? 
It is the east, and Juliet is the sun !— 
Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon, 
Who is already sick and pale with grief, 
That thou her maid art far more fair than she: 
Be not her maid,’ since she is envious ; 
Her vestal livery is but sick and green, 
And none but fools do wear it; cast it off. — 
It is my lady ; O! it is my love: 
O, that she knew she were ! — 
She speaks, yet she says nothing: What of that? 
Her eye discourses, I will answer it. — 
I am too bold, ’tis not to me she speaks: 
Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven, 
Having some business, do entreat her eyes 
To twinkle in their spheres till they return. 
What if her eyes were there, they in her head ? 
The brightness of her cheek would shame those stars, 
As daylight doth a lamp: her eyes in heaven” 
Would through the airy region stream so bright, 
That birds would sing, and think it were not night. 
See, how she leans her cheek upon her hand ! 
Q, that I were a glove upon that hand, 
That I might touch that cheek ! 

Tul. Ah me! 

Rom. She speaks : — 


1 That is, be not a votary to the moon, to Diana. 
2 So the first quarto: the other old copies have eye instead of 
eyes. H. 
6* 5 


“ by ie eee 


66 ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT 11. 


O, speak again, bright angel! for thou art 
As glorious to this night, being o’er my head, 
As is a winged messenger of hemes 
‘Unto the white-upturned wondering eyes 
Of mortals, that fall back to gaze on him, 
When he bestrides the lazy-pacing clouds,° 
And sails upon the bosom of the air. 
Jul. O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou 
Romeo? 
Deny thy father, and refuse thy name: 
Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love, 
And ll no longer be a Capulet. 
Rom. Shall I hear more, or shall I speak at this? 
Jul. "Tis but thy name, that is my enemy ;— 
Thou art thyself though, not a Montague. 
What’s Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot, 
Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part 
Belonging to a man.‘ O, be some other name! 
What’s in'a nhme? that which we call a rose, 
By any other name would smell as sweet : 
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call’d, 
Retain that dear perfection which he owes, 
Without that title. — Romeo, doff thy name ; 
And for that name, which is no part of thee, 
Take all myself. | 


3 So the quarto of 1597; the other old copies, “ lazy-pz-fing 
clouds.” Mr. Collier’s second folio changes pufing to passing, 
which may be right, the long s, as it was then written, being easily. 


mistaken for fi « Take noflees says Coleridge, «in this en- — 
chanting. scene of the contrast of Romeo’s love Swith his former — 


fancy 5 fand weigh the skill shown in justifying him from) his in- 
constancy by making us feel the difference of his passion. . xk 
this, too, is a love in, although not merely of, the imagination.” 

H. 

4 The words, “nor any other part,’ are found only in the first 
quarto. In the second line below, also, name is from the first 
quarto ; the other old copies reading, “ By any other word.” 

H. 


pion 


7h 
AE 


4 «= 
jt! 


SC. II. ROMEO AND JULIET. 67 


Rom. [ take thee at thy word: 
Call me but love, and I’ll be new baptiz’d ; 
Henceforth I never will be Romeo. 
Jul. What man art thou, that, thus bescreen’d in 
night, ° 
So stumblest on my counsel ? 

Rom. By a name 

I know not how to tell thee who I am: 
My name, dear saint, is hateful to myself, 
Because it is an enemy to thee: 

Had I it written, I would tear the word. 

Jul. My ears have not yet drunk a hundred words 
Of that tongue’s utterance,’ yet I know the sound. 
Art thou not Romeo, and a Montague ? 

Rom. Neither, fair saint, if either thee displease. 

Jul. How cam’st thou hither, tell me? and where- 

fore? 

The orchard walls are high, and hard to climb; 

And the place death, considering who thou art, 

If any of my kinsmen find thee here. 

Rom. With love’s light wings did I o’erperch 

these walls; 

For stony limits cannot hold love out: 

And what love can do, that dares love attempt ; 

Therefore thy kinsmen are no let to me.° 

Jul. If they do see thee, they will murder thee. 

Rom. Alack ! there lies more peril in thine eye, 
Than twenty of their swords: look thou but sweet, 
And | am proof against their enmity. 

Jul. I would not for the world they saw thee here. 


® So the quarto of 1597; the other old copies, “thy tongue’s 
uitering.”’ In the next speech, also, all the old copies but the first 
quarto have maid and dislike instead of saint and displeuse. 
H. 
6 That is, no stop, no hinderance. Thus the quarto of 1597. 
The later copies read, “no stop to me.” 


eT eee a 


68 ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT II. 


Rom. Ihave night’s cloak to hide me from their 
eyes ; 
And, but thou love me,’ Jet them find me here : 
My life were better ended by their hate, 
Than death prorogued,® wanting of thy love. 
Jul. By whose direction found’st thou out this 
place ? 
Rom. By love, who first did prompt me to inquire 
He lent me counsel, and I lent him eyes. 
I am no pilot; yet, wert thou as far 
As that vast shore wash’d with the farthest sea, 
I would adventure for such merchandise. 
Jul. Thou know’st the mask of night is on my 
face 3 
Else would a maiden blush bepaint my cheek, 
For that which thou hast heard me speak to-night. 
Fain would I dwell on form, fain, fain deny 
What I have spoke: but farewell compliment !® 
Dost thou love me? JT know thou wilt say, ay ; 
And I will take thy word; yet, if thou swear’st, 
Thou mayst prove false : at lovers’ perjuries, 
They say, Jove laughs.’ O, gentle Romeo! 
If thou dost love, pronounce it faithfully: 
Or if thou think’st I am too quickly won, 
I'll frown, and be perverse, and say thee nay, 


7 But is here used in its exceptive sense, without or unless. 

8 That is, postponed, delayed or deferred to a more distant pes 
riod. The whole passage has the following construction: “I have 
night to screen me :— yet unless thou love me, let them find me here. 
It were better that they ended my life at once, than to have death 
delayed, and to want thy love.” 

8 That is, farewell attention to forms. 

10 This Shakespeare found in Ovid’s Art of Love; perhaps in 
Marlowe’s translation : 


«‘ For Jove himself sits in the azure skies, 
And laughs below at lovers’ perjuries.” 


| 


sc. II. © ROMEO AND JULIET. 69 


So thou wilt woo; but, else, not for the world. 

In truth, fair Montague, I am too fond ; 

And therefore thou may’st think my haviour light : 
But trust me, gentleman, I'll prove more true 
Than those that have more cunning to be strange.” 
I should have been more strange, I must confess, 
But that thou over-heard’st, ere I was ware, 

My true love’s passion: therefore, pardon me ; 
And not impute this yielding to light love, 

Which the dark night hath so discovered. 

Rom. Lady, by yonder blessed moon I swear, 
That tips with silver all these fruit-tree tops, — 

Jul. O! swear not by the moon, th’ inconstant 

moon 
That monthly changes in her circled orb, 
Lest that thy love prove likewise variable. 

Rom. What shall I swear by? 

Jul. Do not swear at all; 
Or, if thou wilt, swear by thy gracious self, 
Which is the god of my idolatry, 

And I'll believe thee. 

Rom. If my heart’s dear love — 

Jul. Well, do not swear. Although I joy in thee, 
I have no joy of this contract to-night : 

It is too rash, too unadvis’d, too sudden ; 
Too like the lightning, which doth cease to be, 
Ere one can say it lightens.’ Sweet, good night! 


1 So the first quarto: the later editions have coying instead of 
more cunning. Also, in the first line of the next speech, all the 
old copies but the first have vow instead of swear. H. 

12 With love, pure love, there is always an anxiety for the safe- 
ty of the object, a disinterestedness, by which it is distinguished 
from the counterfeits of its name. Compare this scene with Act 
iii. sc. 1, of The Tempest. I do not know a more wonderful in- 
stance of Shakespeare’s mastery in playing a distinctly remem- 
berable variety on the same remembered air, than in the trans- 
porting love-confessions of Romeo and Juliet, and Ferdinand and 


70 ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT Il 


This bud of love, by summer’s ripening breath, 
May prove a beauteous flower when next we meet. 
Good night, good night! as sweet repose and rest 
Come to thy heart, as that within my breast! 

Rom. O! wilt thou leave me so unsatisfied 2 

Jul. What satisfaction canst thou have to-night ? 

Rom. Th’ exchange of thy love’s faithful vow for 

mine. 

Jul. I gave thee mine before thou didst request it ; 
And yet I would it were to give again. 

Rom. Would’st thou withdraw it? for what pur- 

pose, love ? 

Jul. But to be frank, and give it thee again. 
And yet I wish but for the thing I have: 
My bounty is as boundless as the sea, 
My love as deep; the more I give to thee, 
The more I have, for both are infinite. 

[Nurse calls within. 

I hear some noise within: dear love, adieu ! — 
Anon, good nurse !— Sweet Montague, be true. . 
Stay but a little, I will come again. [ Exit. 

Rom. O blessed, blessed night! I am afeard, 
Being in night, all this is but a dream, 
Too flattering-sweet to be substantial. 


Re-enter JuLietT, above. 


Jul. Three words, dear Romeo, and good night, 
indeed. 
If that thy bent of love be honourable, 
Thy purpose marriage, send me word to-morrow 


Miranda. There seems more passion in the one, and more dig- 
nity in the other; yet you feel that the sweet girlish lingering and 
busy movement of Juliet, and the calmer and more: maidenly 
fondness of Miranda, might easily pass into each other. —CoLE- 
RIDGE. H. 


Sc. Il. ROMEO AND JULIET. 71 


By one that [ll procure to come to thee, 
Where, and what time, thou wilt perform the rite ; 
And all my fortunes at thy foot Ill lay, 
And follow thee my lord throughout the world." 
Nurse. [ Within.| Madam. 
Jul. I come anon. — But, if thou mean’st not 
well, 
I do beseech thee, — 

Nurse. [ Within.] Madam. 

Jul. By and by; I come.— 
To cease thy suit,’ and leave me to my grief: 
To-morrow will I send. 

Rom. So thrive my soul, — 

Jul. A thousand times good night ! [ Exit. 

Rom. A thousand times the worse, to want thy 

light. — 
Love goes toward love, as school-boys from their 
books ; 
But love from love, toward school with heavy looks. 
[ Retiring slowly. 


13 In Brooke’s poem Juliet uses nearly the same expréssions : 


« But if your thought be chaste, and have on vertue ground ; 
If wedlocke be the marke, which your desire hath found ; 
Obedience set aside, unto my parentes dewe, 
The quarrell eke that long agoe betweene our householdes 
grewe ; 
Both me and myne I will all whole to you betake, 
And, following you whereso you goe, my fathers house forsake. 
But if by wanton love and by unlawfull sate 
You thinke to plucke my maydehood’s dainty frate, 
You are begy/de; and now your Juliet you beseekes 
T> cease your sute, and suffer her to live emong her likes.” 


14 This passage is not in the first quarto, and the other old 
copies have strife instead of suit. Suit agrees much better with 
the context, is the word commonly given in modern editions, and 
is found in Mr. Collier’s second folio. H. 


OS eee 


72 ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT It. 


Re-enter JuiyEet, above. 


Jul. Hist! Romeo, hist !—O, for a falconer’s 
voice, 
To lure this tercel-gentle back again ! 
Bondage is hoarse, and may not speak aloud : 
Else would I tear the cave where echo lies, 
And make her diry voice more hoarse than mine 
With repetition of my Romeo’s name. 

Kom. It is my soul, that calls upon my name: 
How silver-sweet sound lovers’ tongues by night, 
Like softest music to attending ears! 

Jul. Romeo ! 


Rom. My dear !?° 

Jul. At what o’clock to-morrow 
Shall I send to thee ? 

Rom. At the hour of nine. 


Jul. T will not fail: ’tis twenty years till then. 
I have forgot why I did call thee back. 

Rom. Let me stand here till thou remember it. 

Jul. I shalt forget, to have thee still stand there, 
Remembering how I love thy company. 

Rom. And VlI still stay, to have thee still forget, 
Forgetting any other home but this. 

Jul. "Tis almost morning, Ewould have thee gone 3 


© The tercel is the male of the zosshawk, and had the epithet 
genile annexed to it, from the ease with which it was tamed, and 
its attachment to man. Tardif,in his book of Falconry, says that 
the tiercel has its name from being one of three birds usually found 
iz the aerie.of a faleon, two of which are females, and the third 
a male ; hence called tierce/et, or the third. According to the old 
books of sport the falcon gentle and tierce} gentle are birds for a 
prinee. — For voice, third line after, all the old copies but the first 
quarto have tongue. OGY 

36 So the undated quarto. The quarto of 1597 has Madam; 
those of 1599 and 1609 and the first folio have niece instead of dear 
The second folio changes niece to sweet, which is commonly adopt« 
ed in modern editions. H. 


SC. III. _ ROMEO AND JULIET. io 


And yet no further than a wanton’s bird 5 
Who lets it hop a little from her hand, 
Like a poor prisoner in his twisted gyves, 
And with a silk thread plucks it back again, 
So loving-jealous of his liberty. 
Rom. I would I were thy bird. 
Jul. Sweet, so would [3 
Yet I should kill thee with much cherishing. 
Good night, good night! parting is such sweet sor- 


row, 
That I shall say good night, till it be morrow. 
[ Exit. 
Rom. Sleep dwell upon thine eyes, peace in thy 
_ breast ! — 


Would I were sleep and peace, so sweet to rest! 
Hence will I to my ghostly father’s cell,’’ 
His help to crave, and my dear hap to tell. [Emt. 


SCENE III. Friar Laurence’s Cell. 


Enter Friar LAURENCE, with a Basket. 


Fri. The gray-ey’d morn smiles on the frowning 
night," 
Checkering the eastern clouds with streaks of light ; 
And flecked® darkness like a drunkard reels 


17 So the quarto of 1597; the later copies, “my ghostly friars 
close cell.’ — The quartos of 1599 and 1609 and the folio of 1623 
assign the first line of this speech to Juliet. H. 

1 The reverend character of the Friar, like all Shakespeare’s 
representations of the great professions, is very delightful and 
tranquillizing, yet it is no digression, but immediately necessary to 
the carrying on of the plot.— CoLERIDGE, H. 

2 Flecked is dappled, streaked, or variegated. Lord Surrey 
uses the word in his translation of the fourth Auneid: “ Her quiv 
ering cheekes flecked with deadly stain.” So in the old play of 


VOL. X. 7 


eS 
~ 


74 | ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT I. 


From forth day’s path and Titan’s fiery wheels :? 
Now, ere the sun advance his burning eye, 

The day to cheer, and night’s dank dew to dry, 
I must fill up this osier cage of ours, 

With baleful weeds, and precious-juiced flowers.‘ 
The earth, that’s nature’s mother, is her tomb;° 
What is her burying grave, that is her womb ; 
And from her womb children of divers kind 

We sucking on her natural bosom find: 

Many for many virtues excellent, 

None but for some, and yet all different. 

O! mickle is the powerful grace that lies 

In herbs, plants, stones, and their true qualities : 
For nought so vile that on the earth doth live, - 
But to the earth some special good doth give 3 
Nor aught so good, but, strain’d from that fair use, 
Revolts from true birth, stumbling on abuse: 
Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied ; 

And vice sometime’s by action dignified. 


The Four Prentices : « We'll fleck our white steeds in your Chris- 
tian blood.” 

So the first quarto ; the later copies have burning instead of 
Jjiery. Fiery is preferred here, as burning occurs in the next line. 


H. 
* So Drayton, in the eighteenth Song of his Poly-Olbion, speak- 
ing of a hermit: 


“‘His happy time he spends the works of God to see, 
In those so sundry herbs which there in plenty grow, 
Whose sundry strange effects he only seeks to know. 
And in a little maund, being made of oziers small, 
Which serveth him to do full many a thing withal, 
He very choicely sorts his simples got abroad.” 


Shakespeare has very artificially prepared us for the, part Friar 
Laurence is afterwards to sustain. Having thus early discovered 
him to be a chemist, we are not surprised when we find him fur- 
nishing the draught which. produces the catastrophe of the piece. 
° Lucretius has the same thought : “ Omniparens, eadem rerum 
commune sepulcrum.”’ Likewise, Milton, in Paradise Lost, Book 
ii.: “ The womb of nature, and perhaps her grave.” H. 


sc. IIL ROMEO AND JULIET. 75 


Within the infant rind of this weak flower 

Poison hath residence, and medicine power : 

For this, being smelt, with that part® cheers each 
part 5 

Being tasted, slays all senses with the heart. 

Two such opposed kings encamp them still” 

In man as well as herbs, grace and rude will; 

And, where the worser is predominant, 

Full soon the canker death eats up that plant. 


Enter Romeo. 


Rom. Good morrow, father ! 
Fri. Benedicite ! 
What early tongue so sweet saluteth me ?— 
Young son, it argues a distemper’d head, 
So soon to bid good morrow to thy bed: 
Care keeps his watch in every old man’s eye, 
And where care lodges, sleep will never lie ; 
But where unbruised youth, with unstuff’d brain, 
Doth couch his limbs, there golden sleep doth reign. 
Therefore thy earliness doth me assure, 
Thou' art uprous’d by some distemperature : 
Or, if not so, then here I hit it right, — 
Our Romeo hath not been in bed to-night. 
Rom. That last is true; the sweeter rest was mine. 
Fri. God pardon sin! wert thou with Rosaline ? 
Rom. With Rosaline, my ghostly father? no; 
I have forgot that name, and that name’s woe. 
Fri. That’s my good son: But where hast thou 
been, then ? 
Rom. I'll tell thee, ere thou ask it me again. 
I have been feasting with mine enemy ; 


6 That is, with its odour. 
7 The first quarto, alone, has foes instead of kings. Also, 12 
the fourth line above, it has smal instead of weak. H. 


Y wo | | ow DS we ) Pee eee 
Por 


76 ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT II. 


_ Where, on a sudden, one hath wounded me, 
That’s by me wounded: both our remedies 
Within thy help and holy physic lies. 
I bear no hatred, blessed man; for, lo! 
My intercession likewise steads my foe. 
fri. Be plain, good son, and homely in thy drift: 
Riddling confession finds but riddling shrift. 
Rom. Then,’plainly know, my heart’s dear love 
is set 
On the fair daughter of rich Capulet : 
As mine on hers, so hers is set on mine ‘ 
And all combin’d, save what thou must combine’ 
By holy marriage. When, and where, and how, 
We met, we woo’d, and made exchange of vow, 
I'll tell thee as we pass; but this I pray, 
That thou consent to marry us this day. 
Fri. Holy St. Francis! what a change is here! 
Is Rosaline, whom thou didst love so dear, 
So soon forsaken? young men’s love, then, lies 
Not truly in their hearts, but in their eyes. 
Jesu Maria! what a deal of brine 
Hath wash’d thy sallow cheeks for Rosaline! 
How much salt water thrown away in waste, 
To season love, that of it doth not taste ! 
The sun not yet thy sighs from heaven clears, 
Thy old groans ring yet in my ancient ears: 
Lo! here upon thy cheek the stain doth sit 
Of an old tear that is not wash’d off yet. 
If e’er thou wast thyself, and these woes thine, 
Thou and these woes were all for Rosaline: 
And art thou chang’d? pronounce this senterce 
then, — 
Women may fall, when there’s no strength in men. 
Rom. Thou chid’st me oft for loving Rosaline. 
fri. For doting, not for loving, pupil mine. 


eee he 


SC. IV. ROMEO AND JULIET. th 


Rom. And bad’st me bury love. 
Fri. : 

To lay one in, another out to have. 
Rom. I pray thee, chide not: she whom I love 

now 

Doth grace for grace, and love for love allow: 

The other did not so. 

Fri. O! she knew well, 

Thy love did read by rote, and could not spell. 

But come, young waverer, come, go with me, 

In one respect I'll thy assistant be ; 

For this alliance may so happy prove, 

To turn your households’ rancour to pure love. 
Rom. QO! let us hence; I stand on sudden haste. 
Fri. Wisely, and slow: they stumble, that run 

fast. [ Exeunt. 


Not in a grave, 


SCENE IV. A Street. 


Enter Bexvouio and MEeRcurIO. 


Mer. Where the devil should this Romeo be?— 
Came he not home to-night? 

Ben. Not to his father’s: I spoke with his man. 

Mer: Why, that same pale hard-hearted wench, 

that Rosaline, 

Torments him so, that he will sure run mad. 

Ben. Tybalt, the kinsman of old Capulet, 
Hath sent a letter to his father’s house. 

Mer. A challenge, on my life. 

Ben. Romeo will answer it. 

Mer. Any man, that can write, may answer a 
letter. 

Ben. Nay, he will answer the letter’s master, how 
he dares, being dared. 

. _ 


oats 


78 ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT 11. 


Mer. Alas, poor Romeo! he is already dead; 
stabb’d with a white wench’s black eye; shot 
thorough the ear with a love-song; the very pin of 
his heart cleft with the blind bow-boy’s butt-shaft :? 
And is he a man to encounter Tybalt ? 

Ben. Why, what is Tybalt ? 

Mer. More than prince of cats,’ I can tell you. 
O! he is the courageous captain of compliments. 
He fights as you sing prick-song, keeps time, dis- 
tance, and proportion; rests me his minim rest, 
one, two, and the third in your bosom: the very 
butcher of a silk button; a duellist, a duellist ; a 
gentleman of the very first house, — of the first and 
second cause.” Ah, the immortal passado! the 
punto reverso ! the hay !* 

Ben. The what? 

Mer. 'The pox of such antic, lisping, affecting 
fantasticoes, these new tuners of accents ! —*« By 
Jesu, a very good blade !—a very tall man!—a 
very good whore !” — Why, is not this a lamentable 


1 The allusion is to archery. The clout, or white mark at which 
the arrows were directed, was fastened by a black pin, placed in 
the centre of it. To hit this was the highest ambition of every 
marksman. 

? Tybert, the name given to a cat in the old story book of Rey- 
nard the Fox. So in Dekker’s Satiromastix: “ Tho’ you were 
Tybert, prince of Jong-tail’d cats.” Again, in Have With You 
to Saffron Walden, by Nash: « Not T%balt prince of cats.’ —The 
words, “JT can tell you,” are from the first quarto. — Prick-song 
music was music pricked or written down, and so sung by note, not 
gy memory, or as learnt by the ear. H. 

3 That is, a gentleman of the first rank among these duellists ; 
and one who understands the whole science of “quarrelling, and 
will tell you of the first cause, and the second cause for which a 
man is to fight. The clown, in As You Like It, talks of the serenth 
cause in the same sense, 

* All the terms of the fencing school were originally Italian ; 
the rapier, or small thrusting sword , being first neds in Italy. The 
hay is the word hai, you hitue it, used when a thrust reaches the 
antagonist. Our fencers on the same occasion sry out ha / 


ee 


SC. IV. ROMEO AND JULIET. 79 
thing, grandsire,’ that we should be thus afflicted 
with these strange flies, these fashion-mongers, these 
pardonnez-mois, who stand so much on the new form, 


that they cannot sit at ease on the old bench?° O, 
their bons, their bons ! 


Enter Romeo. 


Ben. Here comes Romeo, here comes Romeo. 


- Mer. Without his roe, like a dried herring. — O, 


flesh, flesh, how art thou fishified !— Now is he for 
the numbers that Petrarch flowed in: Laura, to his 
lady, was but a kitchen-wench ;— marry, she had a 
better love to be-rhyme her: Dido, a dowdy; Cleo- 
patra, a gipsy; Helen and Hero, hildings and har- 
lots; Thisbe, a grey eye or so,’ but not to the pur- 
pose. —Signior Romeo, bon jour! there’s a French 
salutation to your French slop.* You gave us the 
counterfeit fairly last night. 

Rom. Good morrow to you both. What coun- 
terfeit did I give you? 

Mer. The slip, sir, the slip:° Can you not con- 
ceive 2 

Rom. Pardon, good Mercutio, my business was 
great; and in such a case as mine a man may 
strain courtesy. 


5 Humorously apostrophising bis ancestors, whose sober times 
were unacquainted with the fopperies here complained of. 

6 During the ridiculous fashion which prevailed of great “ boul- 
stered breeches,” it is said to have been necessary to cut away 
hollow places in the benches of the House of Commons, without 
which those who stood on the new FORM could not sit at ease on 
the old bench. 

7 A grey eye appears to have meant what we now call a blue 
eve He means to admit that Thisbe hada tolerably fine eye. 

8 The slop was a kind of wide-kneed breeches, or rather trow- 
sers. See Much Ado about Nothing, Act iti. se. 2, note 5. 

9 In the Poet’s time, there was a counterfeit coin called a slip. 
See Troilus and Cressida, Act ii. sc. 3, note 4. H. 


80 ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT Il 


Mer. That’s as much as to say, such a case as 
yours constrains a man to bow in the hams. 

Rtom. Meaning, to courtesy. 

Mer. Thou hast most kindly hit it. 

Rom. A most courteous exposition. 

Mer. Nay, I am the very pink of courtesy. 

Rom. Pink for flower. 

Mer. Right. 

Rom. Why, then is my pxmp well flower’d.”® 

Mer. Well said:*' Follow me this jest now, till 
thou hast worn out thy pump ; that, when the single 
sole of it is worn, the jest may remain, after the 
wearing, solely singular. 

Rom. O single-sol’d jest,’’ solely singular for the 
singleness. 

Mer. Come between -us, good Benvolio, for m 
wits fail.’® 

Rom. Switch and spurs, switch and spurs; or Ill 
cry a match. 

Mer. Nay, if our wits run the wild-goose chase, 


10 Romeo wore pinked pumps, that is, punched with holes in 
figures. It was the custom to wear ribbons in the shoes formed 
in the shape of roses or other flowers. Thus in The Masque of 
Gray’s Inn, 1614: “Every masker’s pump was fastened with a 
flower suitable to his cap.” 

11 So the quarto of 1597; the other old copies, Sure wit. 

H. 

12 Single was often used for simple or silly. Single-souled had 
also the same meaning: “ He is a good sengyll soule, and can do 
no harm; est doli nescius non simplex.” — Horman’s Vulgaria. 
It sometimes was synonymous with threadbare, coarse-spun, and 
this is its meaning here. Cotgrave explains «« Monsieur de trois 
au boisseau et de trois Aun épée: a threadbare, coarse-spun, sin- 
gle-soled gentleman.” See Macbeth, Act i. se. 3,note 14; and 
2 Henry IV., Act i. se. 2, note 20. 

13 So the first quarto ; other old copies, “my wits faints.” 

H. 

14 One kind of horserace which resembled the flight of wild geese, 

was formerly known by this name. ‘I'wo horses were started to- 


SC. IV. ROMEO AND JULIET. ; 81 


I have done; for thou hast more of the wild-goose 
in one of thy wits, than, I am sure, I have in my 
whole five. Was I with you there for the goose ? 

Rom. Thou wast never with me for any thing, 
when thou wast not there for the goose. 

Mer. I will bite thee by the ear for that jest. 

Rom. Nay, good goose, bite not. 

Mer. Thy wit is a very bitter sweeting ; 
most sharp sauce. 

Rom. And is it not well serv’d in to a sweet goose? 

Mer. O! here’s a wit of cheverel,’® that stretches 
from an inch narrow to an ell broad. 

Rom. I stretch it out for that word — broad ; 
which added to the goose, proves thee far and wide 
a broad goose. 

Mer. Why, is not this better now than groaning 
for love? now art thou sociable, now art thou 
Romeo; now art thou what thou art, by art as well 
as by nature: for this drivelling love is like a great 
natural, that runs lolling up and down to hide his 
bauble in a hole.’’ 

Ben. Stop there, stop there. 


itis a 


gether, and whichever rider could get the lead, the other rider was 
obliged to follow him wherever he chose to go. This explains the 
pleasantry kept up here. « My wits fail,” says Mercutio. Romeo 
exclaims briskly, “Switch and spurs, switch and spurs.” To 
which Mercutio rejoins, “ Nay, if our wits run the wild goose chase,” 
&c. : 

15 The allusion is to an apple of that name. 

16 Soft stretching leather, kid-skin. See King Henry VIIL., 
Act ii. se. 3, note 2. 

17 Natural was ofien used, as it still is, fora fool. The bau- 
ble was the professional fool’s “staff of office.” See All’s Well 
that Ends Well, Act iv. sc. 5, note 3; and Titus Andronicus, Act 
v. sc. 1, note 4. . H. 


6 


82 ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT Ai. 


Mer. Thou desirest me stop in my tale against 
the hair.’® 

Ben. Thou would’st else have made thy tale 
large. 

Mer. O, thou art deceiv’d! I would have made 
it short; for I was come to the whole depth of my 
tale, and meant, indeed, to occupy the argument no 
longer. 

Rom. Here’s goodly gear! 


Enter the Nurse and PETER. 


Mer. A sail, a sail! ‘ 
Ben. Two, two; a shirt, and a smock. 
Nurse. Peter, pr’ythee, give me my fan.” 
Mer. ’Pr’ythee, do, good Peter, to hide her face ; 
- for her fan’s the fairer of the two.” 
Nurse. God ye good morrow, gentlemen. 
Mer. God ye good den,” fair gentlewoman. 
Nurse. Is it good den? 
Mer. ’Tis no less, I tell you; for the bawdy hand 
of the dial is now upon the prick of noon.” 


18 This phrase, of French extraction, @ contre poil, occurs again 
in Troilus and Cressida: «Merry against the hair.” 

19 In The Serving Man’s Comfort, 1598, we are informed, “The 
mistresse must have one to earry her cloake and hood, another 
her fanne.” So in Love’s Labour’s Lost: “ To see him walk be- 
fore a lady, and to bear her fan.” 

20 We here follow the quarto of 1597. In the other old: copies 
we have the passage thus: «“ Nurse. Peter. — Peter, Anon. — 
Nurse. My fan, Peter. — Mer. Good Peter, to hide her face ; for 
her fan’s' the fairer face.”” Divers modern editions have com- 
pounded a third reading out of the two; which is hardly allow- 
able anywhere, and something worse than useless here, even if it 
were allowable. H. 

21 That is, “God give you a good even.” The first of these 
contractions is common in our old dramas. 

22 That 1s, the point of noon. So in Bright’s Charactery, or 
Arte of Short Writing, 1588: « If the worde end in ed, as I loved, 


SC. IV. ROMEO AND JULIET. 83 


Nurse. Out upon you! what a man are you? 

Rom. One, gentlewoman, that God hath made 
for himself to mar.”® 

Nurse. By my troth, it is well said :— For him- 
self to mar, quoth’a?— Gentlemen, can any of you 
tell me where I may find the young Romeo? 

Rom. I can tell you; but young Romeo will be 
older when you have found him, than he was when 
you sought him. I am the youngest of that name, 
for “fault of a worse. 

Nurse. You say well. 

Mer. Yea! is the worst well? very well took, 
i’faith ; wisely, wisely. 

een If you be hes sir, I desire some confidence 
with you. 

Ben. She will indite him to some supper. 

Mer. A bawd, a bawd, a bawd! So ho! 

Rom. What hast thou found ? 

Mer. No hare, sir; unless a hare, sir, in a lenten 
pie, that is something stale and hoar ere it be spent. 


An old hare hoar, and an old hare hoar.*4 
Is very good meat in lent: 

But a hare that is hoar, is too much for a score, 
When it hoars ere it be spent. — 


Romeo, will you come to your father’s? we’ll to 
dinner thither. 
Rom. I will follow you. 


then make a pricke in the character of the word on the left side.” 
See 3 Henry VI., Act i. sc. 4, note 3. 

23 The preposition for is from the first quarto. The repetition 
of it by the Nurse shows that it was not rightly left out of the other 
old copies. H. 

24 Hoar, or hoary, is often used for mouldy, as things grow white 
from moulding. These lines seem to have been part of an old 
song. In the quarto of 1597, we have this stage direction: “ He 
walks by them and sings.” 


84 ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT II. 


Mer. Farewell, ancient lady; farewell, lady, lady, 
lady.”° [Exeunt Mercu. and BENvO. 
Nurse. Marry, farewell! —I pray you, sir, what 


saucy merchant was this, that was so full of his 
q 26 


ropery ? 


Rom. A gentleman, nurse, that loves to hear him-_ 


self talk ; and will speak more ina minute, than he 
will net to in a month. 

Nurse. An ’a speak any thing against me, [ll 
take him down, an ’a were lustier than he is, and 
twenty such Jacks; and if I cannot, I'll find those 
that shall. Scurvy knave! I am none of his flirt- 
gills; I am none of his skains-mates.”’ — And thou 
must stand by, too, and suffer every knave to use 
me at his pleasure? 

Pet. I saw no man use you at his pleasure: if I 
had, my weapon should quickly have been out, I 
warrant you. I dare draw as soon as another man, 
if I see occasion in a good quarrel, and the law on 
my side. 

Nurse. Now, afore God, I am so vex’d, that 


25 The burthen of an old song. See Twelth Night, Act ii. 
sc. 3. 

26 Ropery appears to have been sometimes used in the sense 
of roguery; perhaps meaning tricks deserving the rope, that is, 
the gallows ; as rope-tricks, in The Taming of the Shrew, Act i. 
se. 2, note 10. So in The Three Ladies of London, 1584: “Thou 
art very pleasant, and full of thy roperye.” — Merchant was ofien 
used as a term of abuse. See 1 Henry VI., Act il. se. 3, note & 
— The words, Marry, farewell, are from the quarto of 1597. 

H. 

27 By skains-mates the Nurse probably means swaggering 
companions. A skain, or skean, was an Irish knife or dagger, a 
weapon suitable to the purpose of ruffling fellows. Green, in kis 
* Quip for an Upstart Courtier, describes “an ill-favoured knave, 
who wore by his side a skeine, like a brewer’s bung knife.” Mr 
Dyce thinks this explanation “ cannot be right, because the Nurse 
is evidently speaking of Mercutio’s female companions.” We do 
not quite see how this should be decisive. H. 


SC. IV. ROMEO AND JULIET. R45 


every part about me quivers. —Scurvy knave ! — 
*Pray you, sir, a word ; and, as [ told you, my young 
lady bade me inquire you out: what she bade me 
say, I will keep to myself. But first let me tell ye, 
if ye should lead her into a fool’s paradise, as they 
say, it were a very gross kind of behaviour, as they 
say: for the gentlewoman is young; and therefore, 
if you should deal double with her, truly, it were an 
ill thing to be offered to any gentlewoman, and very 
weak dealing. 

Rom. Nurse, commend me to thy lady and mis- 
tress. I protest unto thee, — 

Nurse. Good heart! and, i’faith, I will tell her as 
much. Lord, Lord! she will be a joyful woman. 

Rom. What wilt thou tell her, nurse? thou dost 
not mark me. 

Nurse. I will tell her, sir, that you do protest; 
which, as I take it, is a gentleman-like offer. 

Rom. Bid her devise some means to come to shrift 
This afternoon ; 
And there she shall at friar Laurence’ cell 
Be shriv’d, and married. Here is for thy pains. 

Nurse. No, truly, sir; not a penny. 

Rom. Go to; I say you shall. 

Nurse. 'This afternoon, sir? well, she shall be 
there. 

Rom. And stay, good nurse, behind the abbey- 

wall: 

Within this hour my man shall be with thee, 
And bring thee cords made like a tackled stair,”* 
Which to the high top-gallant of my joy 
Must be my convoy in the secret night. 


23 'That is, like stairs of rope in the tackle of a ship. A stat? 
for a flight of stairs was once common. 


VOL. X. 8 


* . 
8 
86 ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT I. 
Farewell! — Be trusty, and I’ll ’quite thy pains. 
Farewell!— Commend me to thy mistress. } 
Nurse. Now, God in heaven bless thee ! — Hark 
you, sir. 


Rom. What say’st thou, my dear nurse 2 
Nurse. Is your man secret? Did you ne’er hear 
say, 

Two may keep counsel, putting one away? 

Rom. I warrant thee; my man’s as true as steel. 

Nurse. Well, sir; my mistress is the sweetest 
Jady —Lord, Lord! — when ’twas a little prating 
thing, —O!— There’s a nobleman in town, one 
Paris, that would fain lay knife aboard; but she, 
good soul, had as lieve see a toad, a very toad, as 
see him. I anger her sometimes, and tell her that 
Paris is the properer man; but, I’ll warrant you, 
when I say so she looks as pale as any clout in the 
varsal world. Doth not rosemary and Romeo be- 
gin both with a letter ? 

Rom. Ay, nurse; what of that? both with an R. 

Nurse. Ah, mocker! that’s the dog’s name. R 


is for the dog.*® No; I know it begins with some 


other letter; and she hath the prettiest sententious 
of it, of you and rosemary, that it would do you 
good to hear it. 


*9 The old copies read, “ R is for the no ;” dog having prob- 
ably dropped out of the text. Tyrwhitt suggested the correction. 
— Ben Jonson, in his English Grammar, says “ R is the dog’s let- 
ter, and hirreth in the sound.” And Nashe, in Summer’s Last 
Will and Testament, 1600, speaking of dogs: « They arre and 
barke at night against the moone.” And Barclay, in his Ship of 
Fooles, pleasantly exemplifies it : 


“This man malicious which troubled is with wrath, 
Nought els soundeth but the hoorse letter R, 
Though all be well, yet he none aunswere hath, 
Save the dogges letter glowming with nur, nar.” 


SC. V. ROMEO AND JULIET. &7 


Rom. Commend me to thy lady. [ Exit. 
Nurse. Ay, a thousand times. — Peter ! 
Pet. Anon. 
Nurse. Peter, take my fan, and go before.*° 
[ Exeunt. 


SCENE V. Capu.et’s Garden. 


Enter JULIET. 


Jul. The clock struck nine, when I did send the 
nurse 5 

In half an hour she promis’d to return. 
Perchance, she cannot meet him: that’s not so.— 
O, she is lame! love’s heralds should be thoughts," 
Which ten times faster glide than the sun’s beams, 
Driving back shadows over lowering hills: 
Therefore do nimble-pinion’d doves draw love, 
And therefore hath the wind-swift Cupid wings. 
Now is the sun upon the highmost hill 
Of this day’s journey; and from nine till twelve 
Is three long hours, — yet she is not come. 
Had she affections and warm youthful blood, 
She’d be as swift in motion as a ball ; 
My words would bandy her to my sweet love, 
And his to me: 
But old folks, many feign as they were dead ; 
Unwieldy, slow, heavy and pale as lead. 


3 So the first quarto; the later copies have merely, “ Before, 
and apace,” instead of “ Peter, take my fan, and go before.” 
H. 
1 The speech is thus continued in the quarto of 1597: 


« And run more swift than hasty powder fir’d 
Doth hurry from the fearful cannon’s mouth. 
O, now she comes! Tell me, gentle nurse, 
What says my love?” 


8 ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT Il. 


Enter the Nurse and PETER. 


O God, she comes !—O, honey nurse! what news? 

Hast thou met with him? Send thy man away. 
Nurse. Peter, stay at the gate. [Evit Perer. 
Jul. Now, good sweet nurse,—O Lord! why 

look’st thou sad ? 

Though news be sad, yet tell them merrily ; 

If good, thou sham’st the music of sweet news 

By playing it to me with so sour a face. 
Nurse. I am aweary, give me leave awhile. — 

Fie, how ny bones ache! What a jaunt have I had! 
Jul. 1 would thou hadst my bones, and I thy 


news: 
Nay, come, I pray thee, speak ; — good, good nurse, 
speak. 
Nurse. Jesu, what haste! can you not stay 
awhile ? 


Do you not see, that I am out of breath? 
Jul. How art thou out of breath, when thou hast 
breath 
To say to me, that thou art out of breath? 
The excuse that thou dost make in this delay 
Is longer than the tale thou dost excuse. 
Is thy news good, or bad? answer to that ; 
Say either, and I’ll stay the circumstance: 
Let me be satisfied, is’t good or bad? 

Nurse. Well, you have made a simple choice: 
you know not how to choose a man: Romeo! no, 
not he; though his face be better than any man’s, 
yet his leg excels all men’s; and for a hand, and a 
foot, ai.d a body, — though they be not to be talk’d’ 
on, yet they are past compare. He is not the 
flower of courtesy, — but I’ll warrant him as gentle 


SC. V. ROMEO AND JULIET. &9 


as a lamb.—Go thy ways, wench: serve God.— 
What! have you dined at home ? 

Jul. No, no: But all this did I know before ; 
What says he of our marriage? what of that? 

Nurse. Lord, how my head aches! what a head 

have I! 
It beats as it would fall in twenty pieces. 
My back ! 0’ t’other side, —O, my back, my back !— 
Beshrew your heart, for sending me about, 

To catch my death with jaunting up and down! 
Jul. Vfaith, I am sorry that thou art not well: 
Sweet, sweet, sweet nurse, tell me, what says my 

love ? 

Nurse. Your love says like an honest gentleman, 
And a courteous, and a kind, and a handsome, 
And, I warrant, a virtuous. — Where is your mother ? 

Jul. Where is my mother ?— why, she is within, 
Where should she be? How oddly thou repli’st ! 
«¢ Your love says like an honest gentleman, — 
Where is your mother ?” 

Nurse. O, God’s lady dear! 
Are you so hot?’ Marry, come up, I trow: 

Is this the poultice for my aching bones ? 
Henceforward do your messages yourself. 
Jul. Here’s such a coil! — Come, what says Ro- 
meo 1 

Nurse. Have you got leave to go to shrift to-day ? 

Jul. I have. 

Nurse. Then hie you hence to friar Laurence 

cell ; 
There stays a husband to make you a wife 
Now comes the wanton blood up in your cheeks 3 
They’ll be in scarlet straight at any news. 
Hie you to church; I must another way, 
To fetch a ladder, by the which your love 
Q* 


90 ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT II 


Must climb a bird’s nest soon, when it is dark: 
I am the drudge, and toil in your delight ; 
But you shall bear the burden soon at night. 
Go; I'll to dinner: hie you to the cell. 
Jul. Hie to high fortune !—honest nurse, fares 
well. [ Exeunt 


SCENE VI. Friar Laurencer’s Cell. 


Enter’ Friar LaurENcE and Romeo. 


Fri. So smile the heavens upon this holy act, 
That after-hours with sorrow chide us not! 

Rom. Amen, amen! but, come what sorrow can, 
It cannot countervail the exchange of joy 
That one short minute .gives me in her sight : 

Do thou but close our hands with holy words, 
Then love-devouring death do what he dare ; 
It is enough I may but call her mine. 

Fri. These violent delights have violent ends, 
And in their triumph die ; like fire and powder, 
Which, as they kiss, consume. 'The sweetest honey 
Ts loathsome in his own deliciousness, 

And in the taste confounds the appetite : 
Therefore, love moderately ; long love doth so; 
Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow. 


Enter JULIET. 


Here comes the lady:—O! so light a foot 
Will ne’er wear out the everlasting flint :! 


1 This scene was entirely rewritten after the first quarto, and ig 
this place not improved. The passage originally stood thus : 


“Youth’s love is quick, swifter than swiftest speed, 
See where she comes ! — 
So light a foot ne’er hurts the trodden flower: 
Of love and joy, see, see, the sovereign power!” 


SC. VI. ROMEO AND JULIET. 91 


A lover may bestride the gossamers 
That idle in the wanton summer air, 
And yet not fall; so light is vanity. 
Jul. Good even to my ghostly confessor. 
Fri. Romeo shall thank thee, daughter, for us 
both. 
Jul. As much to him, else are his thanks too 
much. 
Rom. Ah, Juliet! if the measure of thy joy 
Be heap’d like mine, and that thy skill be more 
To blazon it, then sweeten with thy breath 
This neighbour air, and let rich music’s tongue 
Unfold the imagin’d happiness that both 
Receive in either by this dear encounter. 
Jul. Conceit, more rich in matter than in words, 
Brags of his substance, not of ornament: 
They are but beggars that can count their worth ; 
But my true love is grown to such excess, 
I cannot sum up half my sum of wealth.’ 
Fri. Come, come with me, and we will make 
short work ; 
For, by your leaves, you shall not stay alone, 
Till holy Church incorporate two in one. [Exeunt. 


The hyperbole of nerer wearing out the everlasting flint, appears 
Jess beautiful than the lines as they were originally written, where 
the lightness of Juliet’s motion is accounted for from the cheerful 
effects the passion of love produced in her mind. H. 

2 The old copies read, “I cannot sum up sum of half my 
wealth,” save that in the folio the second sum is printed some, 
Stee:vzns made the transposition, which is doubtless right. H. 


92 ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT Ut 


ACT: ie 


SCENE I. A public Place. 


Enter Mercutio, BeENvotio, Page, and Servants. 


Ben. I pray thee, good Mercutio, let’s retire: 

The day is hot, the Capulets abroad, 
And, if we meet, we shall not ’scape a brawl ; 
For now, these hot days, is the mad blood stirring. 

Mer. Thou art like one of those fellows that, 
when he enters the confines of a tavern, claps me 
his sword upon the table, and says, “God send me 
no need of thee !” and, by the operation of the second 
cup, draws him on the drawer, when, indeed, there 
is no need. 

Ben. Am I like such a fellow ? 

Mer. Come, come; thou art as hot a Jack in thy 
mood as any in Italy; and as soon mov’d to he 
moody, and as soon moody to be moy’d. 

Ben. And what to ? 

Mer. Nay, an there were two such, we should 
have none shortly, for one would kill the other. 
Thou! why thou wilt quarrel with a man that hath 
a hair more, or a hair less, in his beard, than thou 
hast. Thou wilt quarrel with a man for cracking 
nuts, having no other reason but because thou hast 
hazel eyes: What eye, but such an eye, would spy 
out such a quarrel? Thy head is as full of quar- 
rels, as an egg is full of meat; and yet thy head 
hath been beaten as addle as an egg, for quarrelling 
Thou hast quarrell’d with a man for coughing in the 
street, because he hath wakened thy dog that hath 
lain asleep in the sun. Didst thou not fall out with 


SC. I. ROMEO AND JULIET. 93 


a tailor for wearing his new doublet before Easter? 
with another, for tying his new shoes with old rib- 
and? and yet thou wilt tutor me from quarrel- 
ling ! 

Ben. An I were so apt to.quarrel as thou art, 
any man should buy the fee simple of my life for an 
hour and a quarter. 

Mer. The fee simple? O simple ! 

Ben. By my head, here come the Capulets. 


Enter Typaut, and Others: 


Mer. By my heel, I care not. 
Tyb. Follow me close, for I will speak to them. — 
Gentlemen, good den! a word with one of you. 
Mer. And but one word with one of us? Couple 
it with something; make it a word and a blow. 
Tyb. You will find me apt enough to that, sir, if 
you will give me occasion. 
Mer. Could you not take some occasion without 
giving 7 
Tyb. Mercutio, thou consort’st with Romeo, — 
Mer. Consort! what! dost thou make us min- 
strels ? an thou make minstrels of us, look to hear 
nothing but discords: here’s my fiddlestick ; here’s 
that shall make you dance. ”Zounds, consort Re 
Ben. We talk here in the public haunt of men: 
Either withdraw into some private place, 
Or reason coldly of your grievances, 
Or else depart ; here all eyes gaze on us. 
Mer. Men’s eyes were made to look, and let them 
gaAZe : 
I will not budge for no man’s pleasure, I. 


1 It should be remembered that a consort was the old term for 
a set or company of musicians. 


ae 


94 ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT III. 


Enter Romeo. 


Lyb. Well, peace be with you, sir! here comes 

my man. 

Mer. But Dll be hang’d, sir, if he wear your 

livery : 

Marry, go before to field, he’ll be your follower ; 
Your worship, in that sense, may call him —man. 
Tyb. Romeo, the hate I bear thee can afford 

No better term than this, —Thou art a villain. 

Rom. Tybalt, the reason that I have to love thee 
Doth much excuse the appertaining rage 
To such a greeting :—Villain am I none; 
Therefore farewell ; I see thou know’st me not. 

Lyb. Boy, this shall not excuse the injuries 
That thou hast done me; therefore, turn and draw. 

fiom. I do protest, I never injur’d thee ; 
But love thee better than thou canst devise, 
Till thou shalt know the reason of my love: 
And so, good Capulet, — which name I tendér 
As dearly as mine own, — be satisfied. 

Mer. QO calm, dishonourable, vile submission ! 

A la stoccata® carries it away. — [ Draws. 
Tybalt, you rat-catcher, will you walk ? | 

T'yb. What would’st thou have with me? 

Mer. Good king of cats,’ nothing, but one of 
your nine lives; that I mean to make bold withal, 
and, as you shall use me hereafter, dry-beat the rest 
of the eight. Will you pluck your sword out of his 
pilcher * by the ears? make haste, lest mine be about 
your ears ere it be out. 


? The Italian term for a thrust or stab with a rapier. 

3 Alluding to his name. See Act ii. sc. 4, note 2. 

4 Warburton says that we should read pilche, which signifies a 
coat or covering of skin or leather ; meaning the scabbard. The 
first quarto has scabbard. 


SC. I. ROMEO AND JULIET. 95 
Tyb. Yam for you. [ Drawing. 
Rom. Gentle Mercutio, put thy rapier up. 

Mer. Come, sir, your passado. [They fight. 


Rom. Draw, Benvolio: 
Beat down their weapons. —Gentlemen, for shame 
Forbear this outrage !— Tybalt, — Mercutio, — 
The prince expressly hath forbid this bandying 
In Verona streets. — Hold, Tybalt ! — good Mer- 
cutio! [Exzeunt TyBaut and his Partizans. 
Mer. I am hurt ;— 
A plague o’ both the houses !—-I am sped :— 
Is he gone, and hath nothing ? 
Ben. What ! art thou hurt? 
Mer. Ay, ay, a scratch, a scratch; marry, ‘tis 
enough. — 
Where is my page ? —go, villain, fetch a surgeon. 
[Exit Page. 
Rom. Courage, man! the hurt cannot be much. 
Mer. No, ’tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide 
as a church-door; but ’tis enough, ’twill serve: ask 
for me to-morrow, and you shall find me a grave 
man.® I am pepper’d, I warrant, for this world : — 
A plague o’ both your houses !_.’Zounds, a dog, a 
rat, a mouse, a Cat, to scratch a man to death! a 
braggart, a rogue, a villain, that fights by the book 
of arithmetic! Why the devil came you between 
us? I was hurt under your arm. 


5 After this the quarto of 1597 continues Mercutio’s speech as 
follows: “ A pox of your houses! I shall be fairly mounted upon 
four men’s shoulders, for your house of the Montagues and the 
Capulets ; and then some peasantly rogue, some sexton, some base 
slave, shall write my epitaph, that Tybalt came and broke the 
prince’s laws, and Mercutio was slain for the first and second cause. 
Where’s the surgeon ? 

« Boy. He’s come, sir. 

«¢ Mer. Now will be keep a mumbling in my guts on the other 
side. — Come, Benvolio; lend me thy hand. A pox of your 
houses +” 


96 ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT IIT. 


Rom. I thought all for the best. 
Mer. Help me into some house, Benvolio, 
Or I shall faint.— A plague o’ both your houses ! 
They have made worms’ meat of me: 
Ihave it, and soundly too :— Your houses! 
[Exeunt Mercutio and BENVOLIO. 
Rom. 'This gentleman, the prince’s near ally, 
My very friend, hath got his mortal hurt 
In my behalf; my reputation stain’d 
With Tybalt’s slander, Tybalt, that an hour 
Hath been my cousin ;°—O, sweet Juliet! 
Thy beauty hath made me effeminate, 
And in my temper soften’d valour’s steel. 


Re-enter BENVOLIO. 


Ben. O Romeo, Romeo! brave Mercutio’s dead . 
That gallant spirit hath aspir’d the clouds, 
Which too untimely here did scorn the earth. 
fom. This day’s black fate on more days doth 
depend ; 7 iV 
This but begins the woe, others must end. 


Re-enter TYBaut. 


Ben. Here comes the furious Tybalt back again. 
Rom. Alive! in triumph!® and Mercutio slain! 
Away to heaven, respective lenity, 
And fire-cy’d fury be my conduct now !— 
Now, Tybalt, take the “villain” back again, - 
That late thou gav’st me; for Mercutio’s soul 


§ We have already had cousin in the sense of kinsman. The 
first quarto has kinsman here. H. 

7 This day’s unhappy destiny hangs over the days yet to come. 
There will yet be more mischief. 

§ So the first quarto ; the later copies, « He gone in triumph.” 
— The later copies also have « fire and fury ” instead of « fire-ey’d 
fury.” — Respective is considerative. Conduct for conductor. 


sc. I. ROMEO AND JULIET. 97 


Is but a little way above our heads, 
Staying for thine to keep him company : 
Hither thou, or I, or both, must go with him. 
Tyb. Thou, wretched boy, that didst consort him 
here, 
Shalt with him hence. 
Rom. This shall determine that. 
[They fight ; Typaut falls. 
Ben. Romeo, away! be gone! . 
The citizens are up, and Tybalt slain : 
Stand not amaz’d:—the prince will doom thee 
death, 
If thou art taken. — Hence !—be gone !—away ! 
Rom. O! I am fortune’s fool. 
Ben. Why dost thou stay ? 
| Exit Romeo. 


Enter Citizens, §c. 


1 Cit. Which way ran he, that kill’d Mercutio? 
Tybalt, that murderer, which way ran he! 

Ben. There lies that: 'Tybalt. 

1 Cit. Up, sir; go with me: 
I charge thee in the prince’s name, obey. 


Enter the Prince, attended ; MonTAGUE, CAPULET, 
their Wives, and Others. 


Prin. Where are the vile beginners of this fray ? 
Ben. O, noble prince! I can discover all 
The unlucky manage of this fatal brawl : 
There lies the man, slain by young Romeo, 
That slew thy kinsman, brave Mercutio. 
Lady C. Yybalt, my cousin! —O, my brother’s 
child ! » 
O prince! O cousin! husband! O, the blood is 
spill’d ; 
VOL. x. 9 7 


98 ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT III. 


Of my dear kinsman ! — Prince, as thou art true, 
For blood of ours, shed blood of Montague. 
O cousin, cousin ! 
Prin. Benvolio, who began this bloody fray ? 
Ben. Tybalt, here slain, whom Romeo’s hand did 
slay ; 
Romeo, that spoke him fair, bade him bethink 
How nice the quarrel was,’ and urg’d withal 
Your high displeasure : — all this, uttered 
With gentle breath, calm look, knees humbly bow’d, 
Uould not take truce with the unruly spleen 
Of Tybalt, deaf to peace, but that he tilts 
With piercing steel at bold Mercutio’s breast ;?° 
Who, all as hot, turns deadly point to point, 
And, with a martial scorn, with one hand beats 
Cold death aside, and with the other sends 
It back to Tybalt, whose dexterity 
Retorts it. Romeo he cries aloud, 
‘Hold, friends! friends, part!” and, owes than 
his tongue, 
His agile arm beats down their fatal points," 
And ’twixt them rushes; underneath whose arm, 
An envious thrust from Tybalt hit the life 
Of stout Mercutio, and then. Tybalt fled ; 
But by and by comes back to Romeo, 
Who had but newly entertain’d revenge, 
And to’t they go like lightning ; for, ere I 
Could draw to part them, was stout Tybalt slain ; 
And, as he fell, did Romeo turn and fly: 
This is the truth, or let Benvolio die. 


eaee here means silly, tr ifling. 
This smal] portion of untruth in Benvolio’s narrativeis finely 
ea — COLERIDGE. H. 


1! So the first quarto ; the other old copies having aged instead 
of agile. H. 


« 


epee 


SC. I. ROMEO AND JULIET. 99 


Lady C. He is a kinsman to the Montague ; 
Affection makes him false, he speaks not true: 
Some twenty of them fought in this black strife, 
And all those twenty could but kill one life. 

I beg for justice, which thou, prince, must give: 
Romeo slew Tybalt, Romeo must not live. 

Prin. Romeo slew him, he slew Mercutio: 
Who now the price of his dear blood doth owe? 

Mon. Not Romeo, prince; he was Mercutio’s 

friend ; 
His fault concludes but what the law should end, 
The life of Tybalt. 
Prin. y And, for that offence, 
Immediately we do exile him hence: 
I have an interest in your hate’s proceeding 3 
My blood for your rude brawls doth lie a bleeding: 
But I’ll amerce you with so strong a fine, 
That you shall all repent the loss of mine. 
I will be deaf to pleading and excuses 5 
Nor tears nor prayers shall purchase out abuses, 
Therefore use none: let Romeo hence in haste 3 
Else, when he’s found, that hour is his last. 
Bear hence this body, and attend our will: 
Mercy but murders, pardoning those that kill.” 
[ Exeunt. 


12 Dryden mentions a tradition, which might easily reach his 
time, of a declaration made by Shakespeare, that he was obliged 
to kill Mercutio in the third Act, lest he should have been killed by 
him. Yet he thinks him no such formidable person, but that he 
might have lived through the play, and died in his bed, without 
danger to the Poet. Dryden well knew, had he been in quest of 
truth, that in a pointed sentence, more regard is commonly had t+ 
the words than the thought, and that it is very seldom to be rigor- 
ously understood. Mercutio’s wit, gaiety, and courage, will al- 
ways procure him friends that wish him a longer life ; but his death 
is not precipitated, he has lived out the time allotted him in the 
construction of the play; nor do I doubt the ability of Shake- 
speare to have continued his existence, though some of his sallies 


100 ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT IIT 


SCENE IL A Room it CavounvislHiaiee: 


Enter Juutret. 


Jul. Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds, 
‘Towards Phcebus’ mansion ;* such a wagoner 
As Phaeton would whip you to the west, 

And bring in cloudy night immediately. — 
Spread thy close curtain, love-performing night ! 
‘That Rumour’s eyes may wink,” and Romeo 


are perhaps out of the reach of Dryden; whose genius was not 
very fertile of merriment, nor ductile to humour, but acute, argu- 
mentative, comprehensive, and sublime. — Jounson. 

1 So the oldest copy; the later copies having lodging instead 
of mansion. Only the first four lines of this speech are in the 
quarto of 1597. H. 

2 Few passages in Shakespeare, perhaps none, have caused 
more editorial comment than this. The old copies have runawayes 
instead of Rumour’s, or Rumoures, as the word would then have 
heen printed. Several corrections have been proposed, but Ru- 
mour’s seems the most satisfactory. Heath was the first to sug- 
gest it. Singer, also, without any knowledge, as he assures us, 
of Heath’s thought, recently hit upon rumourers’, The two are 
so nearly alike, that they may well enough pass for a coincidence 
of thought. Finally, Mr. White, of New York, tells us he had 
pitched upon Rumour’s, before he was aware that any one else 
had thought of the word. He discusses the point at much length, 
in his Shakespeare’s Scholar, and, we think, justifies the change 
as fully, perhaps, as the nature of the case can well admit. The 
Poet has personified Rumour in the Induction to 2 Henry IV.; 
and in his time she was supposed, like Virgil’s Fama, to have 
eyes as well as tongues. In support of the change, Mr. White 
aptly quotes the following, from an Entertainment given to King 
James, March 15th, 1603, by Dekker: « Directly under her, in a 
cart by herselfe, Fame stood upright ; a woman in a watchet roabe, 
thickly set ‘with open eyes and tongues, a payre of large golden 
winges at her backe, a trumpet in ber hand, a mantle of sundry 
cullours traversing her body: all these ensigns displaying but the 
propertie of her swiftnesse and aptnesse to disperse Rumoure.” 
Collier’s second folio has “ enemies’ eyes ;”’ the objection to which 
is, that from the nature of the case all eyes, as well of friends as 
of enemies, are required to be closed, so that Romeo’s visit may 
be absolutely unknown, save to those already privy to it. Of 


, ee ey 


a. Ore 


Sti Tek ROMEO AND JULIET. 101 


Leap to these arms, untalk’d-of and unseen !— 

Lovers can see to do their amorous rites 

By their own beauties ; or, if love be blind, 

It best agrees with night. — Come, civil night,° 

Thou sober-suited matron, all in black, 

And learn me how to lose a winning match, 

Play’d for a pair of stainless maidenhoods : 

Hood my unmann’d blood bating in my cheeks,* 

With thy black mantle ; till strange love, grown bold, 

Think true love acted, simple modesty. 

Come, night; come, Romeo; come, thou day in 
night ; 

For thou wilt lie upon the wings of night 

Whiter than new snow on a raven’s back.’ — 

Come, gentle night; come, loving; black-brow’d 
night, 

Give me my Romeo: and, when he shall die,® 


course the theory of the reading in the text is, that Rumour, per- 
sonified, represents the power of human observation ; and that 
Juliet Jongs to have night come, when the eyes of Rumour shall 
be shut in sleep, so as to take in nothing for her tongues to work 
with ; because, as things now stand, the lovers can meet and know 
each other as man and wife, only when the eye of observation is 
closed or withdrawn. It may be well to add, as lending some 
support to Rumour’s, that Brooke’s poem has a similar personi- 
fication of Report. It is where Juliet is questioning with herself 
as to whether Romeo’s “bent of love be honourable, bis purpose 
- marriage :” 

«So, I defylde, Report shall take her trompe of blacke defame, 
Whence she with puffed cheeke shall blowe a blast so shrill 
Of my disprayse, that with the noyse Verona shall she fill.” 

H. 
3 Civil is grave, solemn. 
4 These are terms of falconry. An unmanned hawk is one that 
. is not brought to endure company. ating is fluttering or beat- 
ing the wings as striving to fly away. : 
5 The old copies till the second folio have upon instead of on. 
Upon overfills the measure ; and the undated quarto remedies this 


by omitting new. H. 
6 So the undated quarto; the other old copies, “when J shall 
die.” li. 


Q * 


102 ROMEC AND JULIET. “ACT IIL 


Take him and cut him out in little stars, 

And he will make the face of heaven so fine, 

That all the world will be in love with piaae st 

And pay no worship to the garish sun.7— 

O! I have bought the aan of a love, 

But not possess’d it ; and, though I am sold, 

Not yet enjoy’d. So tedious is this day, 

As is the night before some festival 

To an impatient child, that hath new robes, 

And may not wear them. O! here comes my nurse, 


Enter the Nurse, with Cords. 


And she brings news; and every tongue, that speaks 

But Romeo’s name, speaks heavenly eloquence. — 

Now, nurse, what news? What hast thou there? the 
cords, 

That Romeo bade thee fetch ? 

Nurse. | Throwing them down.] Ay, ay, the cords. 

Jul. Ah me! what news? why dost thou wring 

thy bands? 

Nurse. Ah well-a-day! he’s dead, he’s dead, he’s 

dead ! 
We are undone, lady, we are undone ! — 
Alack the day !—he’s gone, he’s kill’d, he’s dead! 

Jul. Can Heaven be so envious ? 

Nurse. Romeo can, 
Though Heaven cannot.—O Romeo, Romeo !— 
Who ever would have thought it? — Romeo! 

Jul. What devil art thou, that dost torment me 

thus ? 
This torture should be roar’d in dismal hell. 
Hath Romeo slain himself? say thou but Z,8 


7 Garish is gaudy, glittering. 
8 In Shakespeare's time the affirmative particle ay was usually 
written J, and here it is necessary to retain the old spelling. 


Sc. Il. ROMEO AND JULIET. 103 


And that bare vowel J shall poison more 
Than the death-darting eye of cockatrice :° 
I am not I, if there be such an J; 
Or those eyes shut, that make thee answer, I. 
If he be slain, say, 2; or, if not, no: 
Brief sounds determine of my weal, or woe. 
Nurse. I saw the wound, I saw it with mine 
eyes, — 
God save the mark ! —here on his manly breast: 
A piteous corse, a bloody piteous corse ; 
Pale, pale as ashes, all bedaub’d in blood, 
All in gore blood ;—I swoonded at the sight. 
Jul. O break, my heart !— poor bankrupt, break 
at once ! 
To prison, eyes! ne’er look on liberty! 
, Vile earth, to earth resign ; end motion here 3 
And thou, and Romeo, press one heavy bier ! 
Nurse. O, Tybalt, Tybalt! the best friend I had: 
O, courteous Tybalt! honest gentleman ! 
That ever I should live to see thee dead ! 
Jul. What storm is this that blows so contrary ? 
Is Romeo slaughter’d ? and is Tybalt dead? 
My dear-lov’d cousin,’® and my dearer lord 1— 
Then, dreadful trumpet, sound the general doom ! 
> For who is living, if those two are gone? 
Nurse. Tybalt is gone, and Romeo banished : 
Romeo, that kill’d him, he is banished. 
Jul. O God! — did Romeo’s hand shed. Tybalt’s 
blood 2 
Nurse. It did, it did; alas the day! it did. 


® The cockatrice is the same as the basilisk, We have already 
met with the “beast” under the latter name. See 2 Henry VEE 
Act iii. se. 2, note 2; and King Richard III., Activ. se. 1, note 5. 

10 So the first quarto; the later copies have dearest instead of 
dear-lov’d. H. 


-—  ™* Oe ere = @i®= 
edie, | ahs hy a, ; 
- 5 BS. ‘ . 
: 
; 


104 ROMEO AND JULIET.. ACT III. 


Jul. O, serpent heart, hid with a flowering face! 
Did ever dragon keep so fair a cave? 
Beautiful tyrant! fiend angelical ! 
Dove-feather’d raven ! wolvish-ravening lamb! 
Despised substance of divinest show ! 

Just opposite to what thou justly seem’st ; 

A damned saint," an honourable villain !— 
O, nature! what hadst thou to do in hell, 
When thou didst bower the spirit of a fiend 
In mortal paradise of such sweet flesh 2 

Was ever book, containing such vile matter, 
So fairly bound? O, that deceit should dwell 
In such a gorgeous palace ! 


Nurse. There’s no trust, 
No faith, no honesty in men ; all perjur’d, 
All forsworn, all naught, all dissemblers. — : 


Ah! where’s my man? give me some aqua vite :— 
These griefs, these woes, these sorrows make me old. 
Shame come to Romeo! | 
Jul. Blister’d be thy tongue, 
For such a wish!?? he was not born to shame: 
Upon his brow shame is asham’d to sit : 
For ’tis a throne where honour may be crown’d 
Sole monarch of the universal earth. 
O, what a beast was I to chide at him! 
Nurse. Will you speak well of him that kill’d 
your cousin ? 
Jul. Shall I speak ill of him that is my husband ? 
Ah, poor my lord! what tongue shall smooth thy 
name,’ 
11 So the undated quarto: the other old copies have dim insteaa 
of damned. H, 
* Note the Nurse’s mistake of the mind’s audible struggles with 
itself for its decision in toto. —CoLERIDGE. hy 
8 To smooth is to speak fair; it is here metaphorically used 


for to mitigate or assuage the asperity of censure with which Ro- 
meo’s name would be now mentioned, 


SC. Il. ROMEO AND JULIET. 105 


When f, thy three-hours wife, have mangled it ?—~ 

But wherefore, villain, didst thou kill my cousin ? 

That villain cousin would have kill’d my husband: 

Back, foolish tears, back to your native spring ; 

Your tributary drops belong to woe, 

Which you, mistaking, offer up to joy. 

My husband lives, that Tybalt would have slain ; 

And Tybalt’s dead, that would have slain my hus- 
band : 

All this is comfort; wherefore weep I, then? 

Some word there was, worser than Tybalt’s death, 

That murder’d me: I would forget it fain 

But, O! it presses to my memory, 

Like damned guilty deeds to sinners’ minds : 

«Tybalt is dead, and Romeo.— banished !” 

That — “banished,” that one word — “banished,” 

Hath slain ten thousand Tybalts."* Tybalt’s death 

Was woe enough, if it had ended there: 

Or, —if sour woe delights in fellowship, 

And needly will be rank’d with other griefs, — 

Why follow’d not, when she said, 'Tybalt’s dead, 

Thy father, or thy mother, nay, or both, 

Which modern lamentation might have mov’d ?'° 

But, with a rear-ward following Tybalt’s death, 

«Romeo is banished !”»—to speak that word, 

Is father, mother, Tybalt, Romeo, Juliet, 

All slain, all dead :— «Romeo is banished !” — 

There is no end, no limit, measure, bound, 

In that word’s death; no words can that woe 
sound. — 

Where is my father, and my mother, nurse ? 


14 That is, is worse than the loss of ten thousand Tybalts. 
18 Modern is trite, common. Soin As You Like It: “ Full of 
wise saws and modern instances.” 


pia a 


106 ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT III. 


Nurse. Weeping and wailing over Tybalt’s corse : 
Will you go to them? I will bring you thither. 
Jul. Wash they his wounds with tears? mine 
shall be spent, 
When theirs are dry, for Romeo’s banishment. 
Take up those cords. — Poor ropes, you are beguil’d, 
Both you and I, for Romeo is exil’d: 
He made you for a highway to my bed, 
But I, a maid, die maiden-widowed. 
Come, cords; come, nurse: I’ll to my wedding bed; 
And death, not Romeo, take my maidenhead ! 
Nurse. Hie to your chamber; I’ll find Romeo 
To comfort you: —I wot well where he is. 
Hark ye, your Romeo will be here at night : 
V’ll to him; he is hid at Laurence’ cell. 
Jul. O, find him! give this ring to my true knignt, 
And bid him come to take his last farewell. . 
[ Exeunt. 


SCENE JI. Friar Lavrencer’s Cell. 


Enter Friar LAuRENCE and Romeo. 


Fri. Romeo, come forth; come forth, thou fearful 
man: 
Affliction is enamour’d of thy parts, 
And thou art wedded to calamity. 
Rom. Father, what news? what is the prince’s 
doom ? . 
What sorrow craves acquaintance at my hand, 
That [ yet know not? 
Fri. Too familiar 
Is my dear son with such sour company : 
I bring thee tidings of the prince’s doom. 
Rom. What less than dooms-day is the prince’s 
doom ? 


sc. Ill. ROMEO AND JULIET. 107 


Fri. A gentler judgment yanish’d from his lips ; 
Not body’s death, but body’s banishment. 

Rom. Ha! banishment? be merciful, say, death; 
For exile hath more terror in his look, 

Much more than death: do not say, banishment. 

Fri. Hence from Verona art thou banished : 

Be patient, for the world is broad and wide. 

Rom. There is no world without Verona walls, 

But purgatory, torture, hell itself. 
Hence-banished is banish’d from the world, 
And world’s exile is death : —then, banished 
Is death misterm’d: calling death banishment,’ 
Thou cut’st my head off with a golden axe, 

And smil’st upon the stroke that murders me. 

Fri. O, deadly sin! O, rude unthank fulness ! 
Thy fault our law calls death; but the kind prince, 
Taking thy part, hath rush’d aside the law, 

And turn’d that black word death to banishment : 
This is dear mercy, and thou seest it not. 

Rom. ’Tis torture, and not mercy: heaven is here 
Where Juliet lives; and every cat and dog 
And little mouse, every unworthy thing, 

Live here in heaven, and may look on her, 
But Romeo may not. — More validity,” 

More honourable state, more courtship lives 
In carrion flies, than Romeo: they may seize 


1 So the first quarto ; the later copies, banished instead of ban- 
tshment. H. 

2 Validity is often employed to signify worth, value. See King 
Lear, Acti. sc. 1, note 13. . By courtship, courtesy, courtly beha- 
viour is meant. Bullokar defines “compliment to be ceremony, 
court-ship, fine behaviour.” So in Ford’s Fancies Chaste and 
Noble: \ 


« Whilst the young lord of Telamon, her husband, 
Was packeted to France, to study courtship, 
Under, forsooth, a colour of employment.” 


188 ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT III. 


On the white wonder of dear Juliet’s hand, 
And steal immortal blessing from her lips 3 
Who, even in pure and vyestal modesty, 
Still blush, as thinking their own kisses sin; 
But Romeo may not, he is banished. 
This may flies do, when I from this must fly : 
And say’st thou yet, that exile is not death 7° 
Hadst thou no poison mix’d, no sharp-ground knife, 
No sudden mean of death, though ne’er so mean, 
But — banished — to kill me? Banished! 
O friar! the damned use that word in hell ; 
Howlings attend it: How hast thou the heart, 
Being a divine, a ghostly confessor, 
A sin-absolver, and my friend profess’d, 
To mangle me with that word, banished 2 
Fri. Thou fond mad man, hear me but speak a 
word.* 
Rom. O! thou wilt speak again of banishment. 
Fri. Vil give thee armour to keep off that word ; 
Adversity’s sweet milk, philosophy, 
To comfort thee, though thou art banished. — 
Rom. Yet banished ?— Hang up philosophy ! 
Unless philosophy can make a Juliet, 


3 We here follow the arrangement of the first folio, except that 
we transpose the line, “ But Romeo may not, he is banished $v 
which is there evidently misplaced after the line, « This may flies 
do, when I from this must fly.” The quartos of 1599 and 1609 
jumble various: readings together thus: 


“This may flies do, when I from this must fly: 
And say’st thou yet, that exile is not death 2 
But Romeo may not, he is banished. 
Flies may do this, but I from this must fly : 
They are free men, but I am banished.” H, 


* So the oldest copy: the later copies have Then instead of 
Thou, and “hear me a little speak,” instead of “hear me but 
speak a word.” — Fond here means foolish: often so used. 

H. 


- 


Sc. III. ROMEO AND JULIET. 109 


Displant a town, reverse.a prince’s doom, 
It helps not, it prevails not: talk no more. 
‘Fri. O! then I see that madmen have no ears. 
Rom. How should they, when that wise men have 
no eyes? 
Fri. Let me dispute with thee of thy estate. 
Rom. Thou canst not speak of what thou dost 
not feel : 
Wert thou as young as I, Juliet thy love, 
An hour but married, Tybalt murdered, 
Doting like me, and like me banished ; 
Then might’st thou speak, then might’st thou tear 
thy hair, : 
And fall upon the ground, as I do now, 
Taking the measure of an unmade grave. 
Fri. Arise; one knocks: good Romeo, hide thy- 


self. [ Knocking within. 
Rom. Not I; unless the breath of heart-sick 
groans, 
Mist-like, infold me from the search of eyes. 
[ Knocking. 


Fri. Hark, how they knock !_- Who’s there ?— 
Romeo, arise ; 
Thou wilt be taken. —Stay awhile. — Stand up ; 

[ Knocking. 
Run to my study. — By and by: — God’s will ! 
What wilfulness is this !—I come, I come. 

[ Knocking. 
Who knocks so hard? whence come you? what’s 
your will? 
Nurse. [Within.] Let me come in, and you shall 
know my errand: 
{ come from Lady Juliet. 
Fri. Welcome, then. 
VOL. X. 10 


110 ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT III. 


Enter the Nurse. 


Nurse. O, holy friar! O, tell me! holy friar, 
Where is my lady’s lord, where’s Romeo? 
Fri. There on the ground, with his own tears 
made drunk. 
Nurse. O, he is even in my mistress’ case ; 
Just in her case! 


Fri. O, woful sympathy ! 
Piteous predicament! ° 
Nurse. Even so lies she, 


Blubbering and weeping, weeping and blubbering. — 
Starid up, stand up; stand, an you be a man: 
For Juliet’s sake, for her sake, rise and stand; 
Why should you fall into so deep an O12 
Rom. Nurse! 
Nurse. Ah sir! ah sir i — Death is the end of all. 
Rom. Spak’st thou of Juliet ? how is it with her? 
Doth she not think me an old murderer, 
Now I have stain’d the childhood of our joy 
With blood remov’d but little from her own? 
Where is she? and how doth she? and what says 
My conceal’d lady ° to our cancell’d love 2 
Nurse. O! she says nothing, sir, but WOrBe and 
weeps ; 
And now falls on her bed; and then starts up, 
And Tybalt calls; and then on Romeo cries, 
And then falls down again. 
Rom. As if that name, 
Shot from the deadly level of a gun, 


5 The old copies make these words a part of the Nurse’s 
speech. They were assigned to the Friar, at Farmer’s sugges- 
tion. ui. 

6 The epithet concealed is to be understood, not of the person, 
but of the condition of the lady. 


~~ 
wine ia , 


SC. IIL ROMEO AND JULIET. — *<] EE 


Did murder her; as that name’s cursed hand 

Murder’d-her kinsman.—O! tell me, friar, tell me, 

In what vile part of this anatomy 

Doth my name lodge? tell me, that I may sack 

The hateful mansion. [Drawing his Sword. 
Fri. Hold thy desperate hand! 

Art thou a man? thy form cries out, thou art ; 

Thy tears are womanish; thy wild acts denote 

The unreasonable fury of a beast : 

Unseemly woman, in a seeming man! 

Or ill-beseeming beast, in seeming both!” 

Thou hast amaz’d me: by my holy order, 

I thought thy disposition better temper’d. 

Hast thou slain Tybalt? wilt thou slay thyself? 

And slay thy lady too that lives in thee, 

By doing damned hate upon thyself ? 

Why rail’st thou on thy birth, the heaven, and earth? 

Since birth and heaven and earth all three do meet 

In thee at once; which thou at once would’st lose. 

Fie, fie! thou sham’st thy shape, thy love, thy wit; 

Which, like an usurer, abound’st in all, 

And usest none in that true use indeed 

Which should bedeck thy shape, thy love, thy wit. 

Thy noble shape is but a form of wax, 

Digressing from the valour of a man; 

Thy dear love, sworn, but hollow perjury, 

Killing that love which thou hast vow’d to cherish ; 

Thy wit, that ornament to shape and love, 


7 Shakespeare has here followed Brooke’s poem: 


« Art thou, quoth he, a man? thy shape saith, so thou art, 
Thy crying and thy weping eyes denote a womans hart: 
For manly reason is quite from of thy mynd outchased, 
And in her stead affections lewd, and fancies highly placed 5 
So that I stoode in doute this howre at the least, 

If thou o man or woman wert, or else a brutish beast.” 


5 . Se er ae 


112 “ ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT III. 


Misshapen in the conduct of them both, 

Like powder in a skill-less soldier’s flask, 

Ts set a-fire by thine own ignorance,® 

And thou dismember’d with thine own defence.® 
What! rouse thee, man! thy Juliet is alive, 
For whose dear sake thou wast but lately dead ; 
There art thou happy: Tybalt would kill thee, 
But thou slew’st Tybalt ; there art thou happy too: 
The law, that threaten’d death, becomes thy friend, 
And turns it to exile; there art thou happy: 

A pack of blessings lights upon thy back ; 
Happiness courts thee in her best array ; 

But, like a misbehav’d and sullen wench, 

Thou pout’st upon thy fortune and thy love: 
Take heed, take heed, for such die miserable. 
Go, get thee to thy love, as was decreed, 
Ascend her chamber, hence and comfort her 3 
But look, thou stay not till the watch be set, 
For then thou canst not pass to Mantua ; 
Where thou shalt live, till we can find a time 
To blaze your marriage, reconcile your friends, 
Beg pardon of the prince, and call thee back 
With twenty hundred thousand times more joy 
Than thou went’st forth in lamentation. — 

Go before, nurse : commend me to thy lady ; 
And bid her hasten all the house to bed, 


8 To understand the force of this allusion, it should be remem- 
bered that the ancient English soldiers, using match locks, instead * 
of locks with flints, as at present, were obliged to carry a lighted 
match hanging at their belts, very near to the wooden flask in 
which they carried their powder. The same allusion occurs in 
Humor’s Ordinary, an old collection of English Uipigrams: 


“When she his fask and touch-box set on fire, 
And till this hour the burning is not out.” 


® And thou torn to pieces with thine own weapons. 


SC. IV. ROMEO AND JULIET. 113 


Which heavy sorrow makes them apt unto: 
Romeo is coming. 
Nurse. O Lord! I could have stay’d here all the 
night, 
To hear good counsel: O, what learning is ! — 
My lord, ll tell my lady you will come. 
Fiom. Do so, and bid my sweet prepare to chide. 
Nurse. Here, sir, a ring she bid me give you, sir. 
Hie you, make haste, for it grows very late. [Evit. 
Rom. How well my comfort is reviv’d by this! 
Fri. Go hence: Good night; and here stands all 
your state :"° 
Either be gone before the watch be set, 
Or by the break of day disguis’d from hence. 
Sojourn in Mantua; [’ll find out your man, 
And he shall signify from time to time 
Every good hap to you, that chances here. 
Give me thy hand; ’tis late: farewell; good night. 
Rom. But that a joy past joy calls out on me, 
It were a grief, so brief to part with thee: 
Farewell. [ Exeunt. 


SCENE IV. <A Room in Caputet’s House. 


Enter Caputet, Lady Carver, and Paris. 


Cap. Things have fallen out, sir, so unluckily, 
That we have had no time to move our daughter : 
Look you, she lov’d her kinsman Tybalt dearly, 
And so did I: — Well, we were born to die. — 
Tis very late, she’ll not come down to-night: 

I promise you, but for your company, 
I would have been a-bed an hour ago. 


10 The whole of your fortune depends on this. 


10 * 6 


1j4 ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT IIT. 


Par. These times of woe afford no time to woo. 
Madam, good night : commend me to your daughter. 
Lady C. 1 will, and know her mind early to- 
morrow 3 
To-night she’s mew’d up to her heaviness. 
Cap. Sir Paris, I will make a desperate tender 
Of my child’s love:* I think she will be rul’d 
Tn all respects by me; nay, more, I doubt it not. 
Wife, go you to her ere you go to bed ; 
Acquaint her here of my son Paris’ love ; 
And bid her, mark you me, on Wednesday next — 
But, soft! What day is this? 
Par. Monday, my lord. 
Cap. Monday? ha! ha! Well, Wednesday is 
too soon 3 . 
O’ Thursday let it be: = 0" Thursday, tell her, 
She shall be married to this noble earl. — 
Will you be ready? do you like this haste? 
We'll keep no great ado ;—a friend, or two;— 
For, hark you, Tybalt being slain so late, 
It may be thought we held him carelessly, 
Being our kinsman, if we revel much: 
Therefore we'll have some half a dozen friends, 
And there anend. But what say you to Thursday? 
Par. My lord, I would that Thursday were to- 
morrow. 
Cap. Well, get you gone: —O’ Thursday be it 
then. — . 
Go you to Juliet ere you go to bed; 
Prepare her, wife, against this wedding-day. — 
Farewell, my lord. — Light to my chamber, ho! 


Desperate means only bold, adventurous, as if he had said in 
the vulgar phrase, I will speak a bold word, and venture to promise 
you my daughter. — JoHNSON. 


SC. Var ROMEO AND JULIET. 115 


_Afore me. it is so very late, that we 
May call it early by and by.— Good night. 
[ Exeunt. 


SCENE V.. Juutet’s Chamber.’ 


Enter Romeo and Juuiet. 


Jul. Wilt thou be gone? it is not yet near day: 
It was the nightingale, and not the lark, 
That piere’d the fearful hollow of thine ear ; 
Nightly she sings on yond’ pomegranate tree.” 
Believe me, love, it was the nightingale. 

Rom. It was the lark, the herald of the morn,° 


1 The stage direction in the first edition is, « Enter Romeo and 
Juliet at a Window.” In the second quarto, “ Enter Romeo and 
Juliet aloft.” They appeared, probably, in the baleony which was 
erected on the old English stage. 

2 A writer in the Pictorial Shakespeare gives the following on 
this passage: “ Amongst the fruit-bearing trees, the pomegranate 
is in some respects the most beautiful ; and therefore, in the South 
of Europe, and in the East, it has become the chief ornament of 
the garden. But where did Shakespeare find that the nightingale 
haunted the pomegranate tree, pouring forth her song from the 
same bough, week after week? Doubtless in some old travels 
with which he was familiar. Chaucer puts his nightingale m ‘a 
fresh green laurel tree ;’ but the preference of the nightingale for 
the pomegranate is unquestionable. ‘The nightingale sings from 
the pomegranate groves in the day-time,’ says Russel, in his ae- 
count of Aleppo. A friend, whose observations as a traveller are 
as acute as his descriptions are graphic and forcible, informs us 
that throughout his journeys in the East he never heard such a 
choir of nightingales as in a row of pomegranate trees that skirt 
the road from Smyrna to Boudjia.” H. 

3 This office of the lark is choicely set forth by old Chaucer: 
the passage may be seen in A Midsummer-Night’s Drea=>, Act iii. 
sc. 2, note 29. Shakespeare has glorified the subject w.th special 
power, in Venus and Adonis : 


“Lo! here the gentle lark, weary of rest, 
From his moist cabinet mounts up on high, 
And wakes the morning, from whose silver breast 
The sun ariseth in his majesty ; , 
Who doth the world so gloriously behold, 
The cedar-tops and hills seem burnish’d gold.” H. 


116 ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT IIL 


No nightingale: look, love, what envious streaks 
Do lace the severing clouds in yonder east. 
Night’s candles are burnt out, and jocund day 
Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops: 
I must be gone and live, or stay and die. 
Jul. Yond’ light is not daylight ; I know it, I: 
It is some meteor that the sun exhales, 
To be to thee this night a torch-bearer,* 
And light thee on thy way to Mantua: 
Therefore stay yet; thou need’st not to be gone. 
Rom. Let me be ta’en, let me be put to death 5 
{ am content, so thou wilt have it so. 
I'll say, yon gray is not the morning’s eye, 
Tis but the pale reflex of Cynthia’s bow ;° 
Nor that is not the lark, whose notes do beat 
The vaulty heaven so high above our heads: 
I have more care to stay, than will to go: — 
Come, death, and welcome! Juliet wills it so.— 
How is’t, my soul? let’s talk, it is not day.® 


4 So in Sidney’s Arcadia: «The moon, then full (not thinking 
scorn to be a torch-hearer to such beauty) guided her steps.” And 
Sir John Davies’s Orchestra, speaking of the Sun: 


« When the great torch-hearer of heaven was gone 
Downe in a maske unto the ocean’s court.” 


5 All the old copies have brow instead of bow. The happy 
change is made in Mr. Collier’s second folio; and Mr. Singer says 
ne. same is done in his second folio. H. 

6 The quarto of 1597 gives this speech in a form which the 
Poet will hardly be thought to have improved ; thus: 


« Let me stay here, let me be ta’en, and die; 
If thoa wilt have it so, [ am content. 
I’ll say yon gray is not the morning's eye, 
It is the pale reflex of Cynthia’s brow ; 
I’ll say it is the nightingale that beats 
The vaulty heaven so far above our heads, 
And not the lark, the messenger of morn: 
Come, death, and welcome! Juliet wills it so, — 
What says my love ? let’s talk, ’tis not yet day.” 


SC. V. ROMEO AND JULIET. 117 


Jul. It is, it is; hie hence, be gone, away ! 
It is the lark that sings so out of tune, 
Straining harsh discords, and unpleasing sharps. 
Some say, the lark makes sweet division ;7 
This doth not so, for she divideth us: 
Some say, the lark and loathed toad chang’d eyes ;° 
O! now I would they had chang’d voices too, 
Since arm from arm that voice doth us affray, 
Hunting thee hence with hunts-up to the day.® 
O! now be gone: more light and light it grows. 
Rom. More light and light !— more dark and dark 
our woes. 


Enter the Nurse. 


Nurse. Madam ! 

Jul. Nurse. 

Nurse. Your lady mother’s coming to your cham- 
ber: 

The day is broke ; be wary, look about. [ Exit. 
Jul. ‘Then, window, let day in, and let life out. 
Rom. Farewell, farewell! one kiss, and Vll de- 

scend. [Romxo descends. — 


7 A division, in music, is a variation upon some fundamental 
air. 

8 The toad having very fine cyes and the lark very ugly ones, 
was the occasion of a common saying that the toad and the lark 
had changed eyes. The croak of the toad would have been no 
indication of the appearance of day, and consequently no signal 
for her lover’s departure. ; 

8 The hunt’s up was originally a tune played to wake sports- 
men, and call them together. It was a common burthen of hunt- 
ing ballads. Puttenham says that one Gray grew into good esti- 
mation with the Duke of Somerset for making certain merry bal- 
lads, whereof one chiefly was the hunte is,up, the hunte is up. 
According to Cotgrave the Reveille, or morning song to a new 
married woman, was called the hunt’s up. So Drayton, in his 
Poly-Olbion: “ But hunt’s up to the morn the feather’d sylvans 
sing.”’ And in his third Eclogue: “Time plays the hunt’s up to 

hy sleepy head.” 


11 ey ss 


118 ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT III. 


Jul. Art thou gone so? love! lord! ay, husband, 
friend ! 

I must hear from thee every day in the hour, 
For-in a minute there are many days: 
O! by this count I shall be much in years, 
Ere I again behold my Romeo. 

Rom. Farewell! I will omit no opportunity 
That may convey my greetings, love, to thee. 

Jul. O! think’st thou we shall ever meet again ? 

Rom. 1 doubt it not; and all these woes shall serve 
For sweet discourses in our time to come. 

Jul. O-God! I have an ill-divining soul ;*° 
Methinks, I see thee, now thou art so low, 
As one dead in the bottom of a tomb: 
Either my eyesight fails, or thou Jook’st pale. 

Rom. And trust me, love, in my eye so do you: 
Dry sorrow drinks our blood. Adieu! adieu! 

| [ Exit. 

Jul. O, fortune, fortune! all men call thee fickle: 
If thou art fickle, what dost thou with him 
_ That is renown’d for faith? Be fickle, fortune ; 
For then, I hope, thou wilt not keep him long, 
But send him back. 

Lady C. [Within.] Ho, daughter! are you up? 

Jul. Who is’t that calls? is it my lady mother ? 
Is she not down so late, or up so early ? 
What unaccustom’d cause procures her hither ? 


10 This miserable prescience of futurity I have always regard 
ed as a circumstance peculiarly beautiful. The same kind of 
warning from the mind, Romeo seems to have been conscious of 
on his going to the entertainment at the house of Capulet: 


“My mind misgives me, 
Some consequence, yet hanging in the stars, 
Shall bitterly begin his fearful date 
From this night’s revels.” STEEVENS, 


a 


; 


SC. V. ROMEO AND JULIET. 119 


Enter Lady CaPuuet. 


_ Lady C. Why, how now, Juliet? 
Jul. Madam, I am not well. 
Lady C. Evermore weeping for your cousin’s 
death 2 

What! wilt thou wash him from his grave with 

tears? 

An if thou could’st, thou could’st not make him live ; 

Therefore have done. Some grief shows much of 

love ; 

But much of grief shows still some want of wit. 
Jul. Yet let me weep for such a feeling loss. 
Lady C. So shall you feel the loss, but not the 

friend 

Which you weep for. 

Jul. Feeling so the loss, 

I cannot choose but ever weep the friend. 

Lady C. Well, girl, thou weep’st not so much 
for his death, 

As that the villain lives which slaughter’d him. 

Jul. What villain, madam ? 
Lady C. That same villain, Romeo. 
Jul. Villain and he are many miles asunder. 

God pardon him! I do with all my beart ; 

And yet no man, like he, doth grieve my heart. 
Lady C. That is, because the traitor murderer 

lives. 
Jul. Ay, madam, from the reach of these my 
hands. 

Would none but I might venge my cousin’s death ! 
Lady C. We will have vengeance for it, fear 

thou not : 

Then, weep no more. I'll send to one in Mantua, — 

Where that same banish’d runagate doth live,— | 


120 ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT III. 


Shall give him such an unaccustom’d dram,” 
That he shall soon keep Tybalt company ; 
And then, I hope, thou wilt be satisfied. 
Jul. Indeed, I never shall be satisfied 
With Romeo, till I behold him — dead — 
Is my poor heart so for a kinsman vex’d. — 
Madam, if you could find out but a man 
To bear a poison, I would temper it ; 
That Romeo should, upon receipt thereof, 
Soon sleep in quiet.— O! how my heart abhors 
To hear him nam’d, — and cannot come to him, — 
To wreak the love I bore my cousin Tybalt’? 
Upon his body that hath slaughter’d him ! 
Lady C. Find thou the means, and UII find such 
a man. 
But now I'll tell thee joyful tidings, girl. 
Jul. And joy comes well in such a needful time: 
What are they, I beseech your ladyship? 
Lady C. Well, well, thou hast a careful father, 
child ; 
One who, to put thee from thy heaviness, 
Hath sorted out a sudden day of joy, 
That thou expect’st not, nor I look’d not for. 
Jul. Madam, in happy time,’® what day is that ? 
Lady C. Marry, my child, early next Thursday 
morn, 
The gallant, young, and noble gentleman, 


11 So all the old copies but the first quarto, which reads thus: 
‘That should bestow on him so sure a draught.” This reading, 
with should changed to shall, has been commonly adopted in the 
modern text. H. 

12 In this line, Tybalt was first-supplied in the folio of 1632, 
It improves the metre, though nowise necessary to the sense. 

H. 

13 A la bonne heure. This phrase was interjected when the 
hearer was not so well pleased as the speaker. —JOHNSON. 


SC. V. ROMEO AND JULIET. 12] 


The county Paris,'* at St. Peter’s church, 
Shall happily make thee there a joyful bride. 
Jul. Now, by St. Peter’s church, and Peter too, 
He shall not make me there a joyful bride. 
I wonder at this haste; that I must wed 
Ere he that should be husband comes to woo. 
I pray you, tell my lord and father, madam, 
I will not marry yet; and, when I do, I swear 
It shall be Romeo, whom you know I hate, 
Rather than Paris. — These are news indeéd !*° 
Lady C. Here comes your father; tell him so 
yourself, 
And see how he will take it at your hands. 


Enter CAPputet and the Nurse. 


Cap. When the sun sets, the earth doth drizzle 
dew ;*° 
But, for the sunset of my brother’s son, 
It rains downright. — 
How now! a conduit,!” girl? what! still in tears ? 
Evermore showering? In one little body 
Thou counterfeit’st a bark, a sea, a wind ; 
For still thy eyes, which I may call the sea, 


14 County, or countie,,was the usual term for an earl in Shake- 
speare’s time. Paris is in this play first styled a young earle. 

15 In Mr. Collier’s second folio, the words, “ These are news 
indeed!” are transferred to Lady Capulet, and made a part of 
the next speech. The change, though not necessary to the sense, 
seems well worthy of being considered. H. 

16 This is scientifically true ; though, poetically, it would seem 
better to read air instead of earth. And, in fact, some modern 
editions do read air, alleging the undated quarto as authority for 
it; but such, it seems, is not the case. A line has been justly 
quoted from The Rape of Lucrece as supporting earth: “ But as 
the earth doth weep, the sun being set.” H. 

17 The same image, which was in frequent use with Shake- 
speare’s contemporaries, occurs in Brooke’s poem: “ His sighs 
are stopt, and stopped in the conduit of his tears.” 


VOL. X. 


{22 ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT III. 


Do ebb and flow with tears; the bark thy body is, 
Sailing in this salt flood; the winds, thy sighs ; 
Who, — raging with thy tears, and they with them, — 
Without a sudden calm, will overset 
Thy tempest-tossed body. — How now, wife ! 
Have you deliver’d to her our decree ? 
Lady C. Ay, sir; but she will none, ‘she gives 
you thanks. 
I would the fool were married to her grave ! 
Cap. Soft! take me with you, take me with you, 
wife."® 
How! will she none? doth she not give us thanks 2 
Is she not proud? doth she not count her bless’d, 
Unworthy as she is, that we have wrought 
So worthy a gentleman to be her bridegroom ? 
Jul. Not proud you have, but thankful. that you 
have : 
Proud can I never be of what I hate ; . 
But thankful even for hate, that is meant love. 
Cap. How now! how now, chop-logic!!® What 
is this ? 
Proud, —and, I thank you,—and, I thank you 
not ;— 
And yet not proud :— Mistress minion, you ! 
Thank me no thankings, nor proud me no prouds, 
But settle your fine joints ’gainst Thursday next, 


18 That is, let me understand you ; like the Greek phrase, “ Let 
me go along with you.” — Coleridge here exclaims, —“ A noble 
scene! Don’t I see it with my own eyes ?— Yes! but not with 
Juliet’s, And observe in Capulet’s Jast speech in this scene his 
mistake, as if love’s causes were capable of being generalized.” 


H. 
19 Capulet uses this as-a nickname. « Choplogyk is he that 
whan his mayster rebuketh his servaunt for his defawtes, he will 
give him xx wordes for one, or elles he will bydde the devylles 
vaternoster in scylence.” — The xxiiii Orders of Knaves. 


SC. V. - ROMERO AND JULIET. 123 


To go with Paris to St. Peter’s church, 
Or I will drag thee on a hurdle thither. 
Out, you green-sickness carrion ! out, you baggage! 
You tallow face !*° 
Lady C. Fie, fie! what! are you mad? 
Jul. Good father, I beseech you on my knees, 
Hear me with patience but to speak a word. 
Cap. Hang thee, young baggage! disobedient 
wretch ! 
I tell thee what, — get thee to church o’ Thursday, 
Or never after look me in the face. 
Speak not, reply not, do not answer me 5 
My fingers itch. — Wife, we scarce thought us 
, bless’d, 
That God had sent us but this only child ; 
But now I see this one is one too much, 
And that we have a curse in having her. 
Out on her, hilding !** 
Nurse. God in heaven bless her !— 
You are to blame, my lord, to rate her so. 
Cap. And why, my lady wisdom? hold your 
. tongue, 
Good prudence: smatter with your gossips; go. 
Nurse. I speak no treason. 


Cap. O, God ye good den ! 
Nurse. May not one speak ? 
Cap. Peace, you mumbling fool ! 


Utter your gravity o’er a gossip’s bowl, 
For here we need it not. 


20 In the age of Shakespeare, authors not only employed these 
terms of abuse in their original performances, but even in their 
versions of the most chaste and elegant of the Greek or Roman 
poets. Stanyhurst, the translator of Virgil, in 1582, makes Dido 
call ASneas hedge-brat, cullion, and tar-breech, in the course of 
one speech. ‘ 

21 Hilding was a common term of reproach ; meaning somes 
thing vile. See The Taming of the Shrew, Act ii. se. 1, note 1 

R- 


124 ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT Ti 


Lady Cor" You are too hot. 
Cap. God’s bread! it makes me mad. 
Day, night, hour, tide, time, work, play, 
Alone, in company, still my care hath been 
To have her match’d ;* and having now provided 
A gentleman of noble parentage, 
Of fair demesnes, youthful, and nobly-train’d,”* 
Stuff’d (as they say) with honourable parts, - 
Proportion’d as one’s thought would wish a man, — 
And then to have a wretched puling fool, 
A whining mammet,” in her fortune’s tender, 
To answer, “I'll not wed, —I cannot love, 
I am too young, —I pray you, pardon me.” — 
But, an you will not wed, I’ll pardon you: , 
Graze where you will, you shall not house with me; 
Look to’t, think on’t, I do not use to jest. 
Thursday is near; lay hand on heart, advise: 
An you be mine, [’ll give you to my friend ; 
An you be not, hang, beg, starve, die i’the streets, 
For, by my soul, I’ll ne’er acknowledge thee, 
Nor what is: mine shall never do thee good. 
Trust to’t, bethink you; I'll not be forsworn. [ Ezit. 
Jul. Is there no pity sitting in the clouds, 


"22 Such is the reading of all the old copies except the first, by 
the help of which a third reading has been manufactured in divers 
modern editions. We subjoin the passage as there given: 


«“ God’s blessed mother, wife, it mads me: 
Day, night, early, late, at home, abroad, 
Alone, in company, waking or sleeping, 
' Still my care hath been to see her match’d. a H. 


23 Train’d is from the quarto of 1597: that of 1599 has liand ; 
the other old copies, ul/ied. — In the second line after, the first 
quarto has heart could instead of thought would, which is the read- 
ing of all the other old copies. H. 

24 Mummet has been explained i in 1] Henry IV., Act ii. se. 3, 
note 9. The explanation there given has been disputed, but is 
confirmed by the use of the word in this place. He 


Sc. V. ROMEO AND JULIET. 125 


That sees into the bottom of my grief? — 
O, sweet my mother, cast me not away! 
Delay this marriage for a month, a week ; 
Or, if you do not, make the bridal bed 
In that dim monument where Tybalt lies. 
Lady C. Talk not to me, for Pll not speak a 
word. 
Do as thou wilt, for I have done with thee. [Ezit. 
Jul. O God! —O nurse! how shall this be pre- 
vented 2 
My husband is on earth, my faith in heaven ; 
How shall that faith return again to earth, 
Unless that husband send it me from heaven 
By leaving earth ?— comfort me, counsel me. — 
Alack, alack! that Heaven should practise strat- 
agems 
Upon so soft a subject as myself !— 
What say’st thou? hast thou not a word of joy? 
Some comfort, nurse. 
Nurse. Faith, here ’tis: Romeo 
Is banished ; and all the world to nothing, 
That he dares ne’er come-back to challenge you 5 
Or, if he do, it needs must be by stealth. 
Then, since the case so stands as now it doth, 
I think it best you married with the county. 
O, he’s a lovely gentleman !*° 
Romeo’s a dishclout to him: an eagle, madam, 


25 The character of the Nurse exhibits a just picture of those 
whose actions have no principles for their foundation. She has 
been unfaithful to the trust reposed in her by Capulet, and is 
ready to embrace any expedient that offers, to avert the conse- 
quences of her first infidelity. The picture is not, however, an 
original ; the nurse in the poem exhibits the same readiness to ac- 
commedate herself to the present conjuncture. Sir John Van- 
brugh, in The Relapse, has copied, in this respect, the character 
of his nurse from Shakespeare. 


11* 


126 ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT III. 


Hath not so green,*® so quick, so fair an eye, 
As Paris hath. Beshrew my very heart, 
I think you are happy in this second match, 
For it excels your first; or, if it did not, 
Your first is dead; or ’twere as good he were, 
As living here, and you no use of him. 
Jul. Speakest thou from thy heart? 
Nurse. And from my soul too; or else beshrew 
them both. ! 
Jul. Amen ! 
Nurse. What? 
Jul. Well, thou hast comforted me marvellous 
much. 
Go in; and tell my lady I am gone, 
Having displeas’d my father, to Laurence’ cell, 
To make confession, and to be absolv’d. - 
Nurse. Marry, I will; and this is wisely done. 
[ Exit. 
Jul. Ancient damnation! O, most wicked fiend ! 
Is it more sin to wish me thus forsworn, 
Or to dispraise my lord with that same tongue 
Which she hath prais’d him with above compare 
So many thousand times ?— Go, counsellor ; 
Thou and my bosom henceforth shall be twain. — 
Pll to the friar, to know his remedy 5. _ 
If all else fail, myself have power to die. _—_[ Exit. 


76 Chaucer, in The Knightes Tale, says of Emetrius, —“ His 
nose was high, his eyew bright citrin ;”’? which probably means 
that his eyes had the colour of an unripe Jemon or citron. So, 
Fletcher, in The Two Noble Kinsmen: « O! vouchsafe with that 
thy rare green eye.” And Lord Bacon says that “eyes some- 
what large, and the circles of them inclined to greenness, are signs 
of long life.” H, 


ROMEO AND JULIET. 127 


ACT IV. 


SCENE I. Friar Laurencer’s Cell. 


Enter Friar LAURENCE and Paris. 


Fri. On Thursday, sir? the time is very short. 
Par. My father Capulet will have it so; 
And I am nothing slow, to slack his haste.’ 
Fri. You say you do not know the lady’s mind: 
Uneven is the course; I like it not. 
Par. Immoderately she weeps for Tybalt’s death, 
And therefore have I little talk’d of love ; 
For Venus smiles not in a house of tears. 
Now, sir, her father counts it dangerous, 
That she doth give her sorrow so much sway 3 
And in his wisdom hastes our marriage, 
To stop the inundation of her tears ; 
Which, too much minded by herself alone, 
May be put from her by society. 
Now do you know the reason of this haste. 
Fri. [Aside.] I would I knew not why it should. 
be slow’d.? — 
Look, sir, here comes the lady towards my cell. 


Enter JuutetT. 


Par. Happily met, my lady, and my wife ! 
Jul. That may be, sir, when I may be a wife. 


1 The meaning of Paris is clear; he does not wish to restrain 
Capulet, or to delay bis own marriagé ; there is nothing of slow- 
ness in me, to induce me to slacken his haste: but the words given 
him seem rather to mean I am not backward in restraining his 
haste. In the first edition the line ran: “ And I am nothing slack 
to slow his haste.” 

2 To slow and to foreslow were anciently in common use. 


128 ROMEO AND JULIET. . ACT sty, 


Par. 'That may be, must be, love, on Thursday 
next. 
Jul. What must be shall be. 
Fri. That’s a certain text. 
Par. Come you to make confession to this father ? 
Jul. 'To answer that, I should confess to you. 
Par. Do not deny to him that you love me. 
Jul. I will confess to you that I love him. 
Par. So will you, I am sure, that you love me. 
Jul. If I do so, it will be of more price 
Being spoke behind your back, than to your face. 
Par. Poor soul, thy face is much abus’d with tears. 
Jul. The tears have got small victory by that ; 
Ior it was bad enough before their spite. 
Par. Thou wrong’st it, more than tears, with 
that report. 
Jul. That is no slander, sir, that is a truth; 
And what I spake, I spake it to my face. 
Par. Thy face is mine, and thou hast slander’d it. 
Jul. It may be so, for it is not mine own. — 
Are you at leisure, holy father, now, 
Or shall I come to you at evening mass 7° 
Fri. My leisure serves me, pensive daughter, 
now. — 
My lord, we must intreat the time alone. 
Par. God shield, I should disturb devotion |! — 
Juliet, on Thursday early will I rouse you: 
Till then, adieu! and keep this holy kiss. — [ Ezz. 
Jul. O, shut the door! and when thou hast done 
SO, 
Come weép with me; past hope, past cure, past 
help! | 
Fri. Ah, Juliet! I already know thy grief ; 


3 Juliet means vespers ; there is no such thing as evening mass. 


SC. I. ROMEO AND JULIET. 129 


It strains me past the compass of my wits: 
I hear thou must, and nothing must prorogue it, 
On Thursday next be married to this county. 
Jul. Tell me not, friar, that thou hear’st of this, 
Unless thou tell me how I may prevent it: 
Tf in thy wisdom thou canst give no help, 
Do thou but call my resolution wise, 
And with this knife Pll help it presently. 
God join’d my heart and Romeo’s, thou our hands ; 
And ere this hand, by thee to Romeo seal’d, 
Shall be the label to another deed,* 
Or my true heart with treacherous revolt 
Turn to another, this shall slay them both. 
Therefore, out of thy long-experienc’d time, ° 
Give me some present counsel ; or, behold, 
*T wixt my extremes and me this bloody knife 
Shall play the umpire, arbitrating that 
Which the commission of thy years and art 
Could to no issue of true honour bring. 
Be not so long to speak ; I long to die, 
If what thou speak’st speak not of remedy. 
Fri. Hold, daughter! | do spy a kind of hope, 
Which craves as desperate an execution 
As that is desperate which we would prevent. 
If, rather than to marry county Paris, 
Thou hast the strength of will to slay thyself, 
Then is it likely thou wilt undertake 
A thing like death to chide away this shame, 
That cop’st with death himself to ’scape from it; 
And, if thou dar’st, Ill give thee remedy. 
Jul. O! bid me leap, rather than marry Paris, 


4 The seals of deeds formerly were appended on distinct slips 
or labels affixed to the deed. Hence in King Richard II. the 
Duke of York discovers a covenant, which his son the Duke of 
Aumerle had entered into, by the depending seal. 


9 


tt 


130 ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT IV. 


From off the battlements of yonder tower ;° 
Or walk in thievish ways; or bid me lurk 
Where serpents are; chain me with roaring bears 3 
Or hide me nightly in a charnel-house, 
O’er-cover’d quite with dead men’s rattling bones, 
With reeky shanks, and yellow chapless skulls ; 
Or bid me go into a new-made grave, 
And hide me with a dead man in his shrond ;° 
Things that, to hear them told, have made me 
tremble ; 

And I will do it without fear or doubt, 
To live an unstain’d wife to my sweet love. 

fri. Hold, then: go home, be merry, give con- 

sent 

To marry Paris. Wednesday is to-morrow ; 
To-morrow night look that thou lie alone, ’ 
Let not thy nurse lie with thee in thy chamber : 
Take thou this phial, being then in bed, 
And this distilled liquor drink thou off ; 
When, presently, through all thy veins shall run 
A cold and drowsy humour; for no pulse 
Shall keep his native progress, but surcease : 7 


5 So the first quarto ; the other old copies, “ any tower.” —In 
the second line below, the first quarto reads thus ; 


«Or chain me to some steepy mountain’s top, 
Where roaring bears and savage lions are.” H. 


6 So the undated quarto: the folio of 1623 has grave instead 
of shroud: the quartos'of 1599 and 1609 have nothing after his, 
thus leaving the sense incomplete. The first quarto gives the line 
thus: “Or lay me in a tomb with one new dead.’’— Instead of 
the last line in this speech, the quarto of 1597 has the following : 


“To keep myself a faithful unstain’d wife 
To my dear lord, my dearest Romeo.” H. 


7 In the first quarto, where this whole speech extends only to 
fourteen lines, we have the following, which is in some respects 
better than the reading of the other old copies: 


Sc. I. ROMEO AND JULIET. 131 


No warmth, no breath, shall testify thou liv’st 5 
The roses in thy lips and cheeks shall fade 
To paly ashes;* thy eyes’ windows fall, 
Like death, when he shuts up the day of life ; 
Each part, depriv’d of supple government, 
Shall, stiff and stark and cold, appear like death: 
And in this borrow’d likeness of shrunk death 
Thou shalt remain full two-and-forty hours, 
And then awake as from a pleasant sleep. 
Now, when the bridegroom in the morning comes 
To rouse thee from thy bed, there art thou dead : 
Then, as the manner of our country is, 
In thy best robes uncover’d on the bier,® 
Thou shalt be borne to that same ancient vault, 
Where all the kindred of the Capulets lie. 
In the mean time, against thou shalt awake, 
Shall Romeo by my letters know our drift 5 
And hither shall he come, and he and I 
Will watch thy waking, and that very.night 
Shall Romeo bear thee hence to Mantua. 
And this shall free thee from this present shame, 
If no unconstant toy nor womanish fear 
Abate thy valour in the acting it. 

Jul. Give me, give me! O, tell me not of fear ! 

Fri. Hold; get you gone; be strong and pros- 

perous 


® 
«A dull and heavy slumber, which shall seize 
Each vital spirit; for no palse shall keep 
His natural progress, but surcease to beat.” H. 


8 So the undated quarto: the other old copies have many in- 
stead of puly; except the second folio, which bas mealy. H. 

9 The Italian custom here alluded to, of carrying the dead body 
to the grave richly dressed, and with the face uncovered, Shake- 
speare found particularly described in Brooke’s poem: 


« An other use there is, that whosoever dyes, 
Borne to their church, with open face upon the beere he lyes, 
In wonted weed attyrde, not wrapt in winding sheete.” 


132 ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT IV. 


In this resolve: I'll send a friar with speed 
To Mantua, with my letters to thy lord. 
Jul. Love, give me strength! and strength shall 
help afford. 
Farewell, dear father ! [ Exeunt. 


SCENE II. A Room in Capu.et’s House. 


Enter CapuLtet, Lady CarPu.et, the Nurse, and 
Servants. 


Cap. So many guests invite as here are writ. — 
[Exit Servant. 
Sirrah, go hire me twenty cunning cooks.’ 
2 Serv. You shall have none ill, sir; for I’ll try 
if they can lick their fingers. 


1 Cooking was an art of great esteem in Shakespeare’s time, 
as indeed it is likely to be, so long as men keep up the habit of 
eating. Ben Jonson’s description of “a master cook,” too long 
to be quoted here, is a specimen of the humourous sublime not apt 
to be forgotten by any one that has feasted upon it. The Poet 
has been suspected of an oversight or something worse, in making 
Capulet give order here for so many “cunning cooks ;” where- 
upon the pictorial edition defends him thus: «“ Old Capulet, in his 
exuberant spirits at his daughter’s approaching marriage, calls for 
‘twenty’ of these artists. The critics think this too large a num- 
ber. Ritson says, with wonderful simplicity, —*‘ Either Capulet 
had altered his mind strangely, or our author forgot what he had 
just made him tell us.’ This is indeed to understand the Poet 
with admirable exactness. The passage is entirely in keeping 
with Shakespeare’s habit of hitting off a character almost by a 
word. Capulet is evidently a man of ostentation ; but his osten- 
tation, as is most generally the case, is covered with a thin veil of 
affected indifference. In the first Act he says to his. guests, — 
«We have a trifling foolish banquet toward.’ In the third Act, 
wien he settles the day of Paris’ marriage, he just hints, —‘ We'll 
keep no great ado 3; —a friend, or two.’ But Shakespeare knew 
that these indications of ‘the pride which apes humility’ were not 
inconsistent with the ‘twenty cooks,’ — the regret that ‘we shall 
be much unfurnish’d for this time,’ and the solicitude expressed in, 
‘Look to the bak’d meats, good Angelica.’ ” H. 


— 


sc. IL ROMEO AND JULIET. : 133 


Cap. How canst thou try them so? 

2 Serv. Marry, sir, ’tis an ill cook that cannot 
lick his own fingers: ° therefore, he that cannot lick 
his fingers goes not with me. 

Cap. Go, begone.— [Exit Servant. 
We shall be much unfurnish’d for this time. — 
What! is my daughter gone to friar Laurence? 

Nurse. Ay, forsooth. 

Cap. Well, he may chance to do some good on 

her: 
A peevish self-will’d harlotry it is. 


Enter JUvIetT. 


Nurse. See, where she comes from shrift with 
merry look. 
Cap. How now, my headstrong! where have you 
been gadding ? 
_Jul. Where I have learn’d me to repent the sin 
Of disobedient opposition 
To you and your behests; and am enjoin’d 
By holy Laurence to fall prostrate here, 
And beg your pardon. — Pardon, I beseech you ! 
Henceforward I am ever rul’d by you. 
Cap. Send for the county: go tell him of this. 
Vl have this knot knit up to-morrow morning. 
Jul. I met the youthful lord at Laurence’ cell ; 
And gave him what becomed Jove I might,’ 
Not stepping o’er the bounds of modesty. 


2 This adage is in Puttenham’s Arte of English Poesie, 1589: 


« As the olde cocke crowes so doeth the chicke: 
A bad cooke that cannot his owne\fingers lick.” 


3 Becomed for becoming. The old writers furnish many such 
instances of the active and passive forms used interchangeably. 
H. 


Ol. X> 12 


ae. 


134 ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT IV. 


Cap. Why, I am glad on’t; this is well, —stand 
up: 

This is as’t should be. — Let me see the county: 
Ay, marry, go, I say, and fetch him hither. — 
Now, afore God, this reverend holy friar, 
All our whole city is much bound to him. 

Jul. Nurse, will you go with me into my closet, 
To help me sort such needful ornaments 
As you think fit, to furnish me to-morrow 2? 

Lady C. No, not till Thursday: there is time 


enough. 
Cap. Go, nurse, go with her.— We’ll to church 
to-morrow. [Exeunt Juuiet and Nurse. 


Lady C. We shall be short in our provision : 
"Tis now near night. 

Cap. Tush! I will stir about, 
And all things shall be well, I warrant thee, wife. 
Go thou to Juliet; help to deck up her: 

I’ll not to bed to-night ;—let me alone ; 
V’ll play the housewife for this once. — What, ho !— 
They are all forth: weil, I will walk myself 
To county Paris, to prepare up him 
Against to-morrow. My heart is wondrous light, © 
Since this same wayward girl is so reclaim’d. 

[ Exeunt. 


SCENE III. Juurer’s Chamber. 


Enter Juuret and the Nurse. 


Jul. Ay, those attires are best: — But, gentle 
nurse, 
{ pray thee, leave me to myself to-night ; 
For I have need of many orisons 
To move the heavens to smile upon my state, 
Which, well thou know’st, is cross and full of sin. 


Sc. III. ROMEO AND JULIET. 135 


Enter Lady CaPuLet. 


Lady C. What! are you busy, ho? need you my 
help? 
Jul. No, madam; we have cull’d such necessaries 
As are behoveful for our state to-morrow : 
So please you, let me now be left alone, 
And let the nurse this night sit up with you ; 
For, I am sure, you have your hands full all, 
In this so sudden business. 
Lady C. Good night : 
Get thee to bed, and rest ; for thou hast need. 
[Exeunt Lady CapuLet and Nurse. 
Jul. Farewell ! —God knows when we shall meet 
again. 
I have a faint cold fear thrills through my veins, 
That almost freezes up the heat of life: 
Vll call them back again to comfort me. — 
Nurse ! — What should she do here? 
My dismal scene I needs must act alone. — 
Come, phial. — 
What if this mixture do not work at all? 
Shall I be married, then, to-morrow morning ?— 
No, no ;—this shall forbid it: —lie thou there. — 
[Laying down a Dagger. 
What if it be a poison, which the friar — 
Subtly hath minister’d, to have me dead, 
Lest in this marriage he should be dishonour’d, 
Because he married me before to Romeo? 
I fear, it is; and yet, methinks, it should not, 


Daggers,” says Gifford, “or, as they are commonly called, 
et were worn at all times by every woman in England ; 
whether they were so in a Shakespeare, I believe, never in 
quired, and I cannot tell.” H. 


136 ROMEO AND JULIET 


For he hath still been tried a holy man: 

I will not entertain so bad a thought.2— 

How if, when I am laid into the tomb, 

I wake before the time that Romeo 

Come to redeem me? there’s a fearful point! 
Shall I not then be stifled in the vault, 

‘l'o whose foul mouth no healthsome air breathes in, 
And there die strangled ere my Romeo comes? 
Or, if I live, is it not very like, 

The horrible conceit of death and night, 
Together with the terror of the place, — 

As in a vault, an ancient receptacle, 

Where, for these many hundred years, the bones 
Of all my buried ancestors are pack’d =F: 


? This line, found only in the quarto of 1597, is retained, as 
making the sense more complete. — We subjoin the whole of this 
speech as it stands in the first quarto, that the reader may observe 
with what growth of power it was afterwards worked out by the 
Poet: 


“ Farewell: God knows when we shall meet again. 
Ab! I do take a fearful thing in hand. 
What if this potion should not work at all, 
Must I of force be married to the county ? 
This shall forbid it: knife, lie thou there. 
What if the friar should give me this drink 
To poison me, for fear I should disclose 
Our former marriage 2? Ab! I wrong him much; 
He is a holy and religious man: 
I will not entertain so bad a thought. 
What if I should be stifled in the tomb? 
Awake an hour before the appointed time? 
Ah! then IT fear I shall be lunatic ; 
And,-playing with my dead forefathers’ bones, - 
Dash out my frantic brains. Methinks, I see 
My cousin Tybalt weltering in his blood, 
Seeking for Romeo! Stay, Tybalt, stay ! 
Romeo, I come; this do I drink to thee.” H. 


3 This idea was probably suggested to the Poet by his native 
place. The charnel at Stratford-upon-Avon is a very arge one, 


sc. III. ROMEO AND JULIET. 137- 


Where bloody Tybalt, yet but green in earth, 
Lies festering in his shroud; where, as they say, 
At some hours in the night spirits resort 5 — 
Alack, alack ! is it not like, that I, 
So early waking, — what with loathsome smells, 
And shrieks like mandrakes’ torn out of the earth, 
That living mortals, hearing them, run mad ;*— 
O! if I wake, shall I not be distraught, 
Environed with all these hideous fears, 
And madly play with my forefathers’ joints, 
And pluck the mangled Tybalt from his shroud? 
And, in this rage,‘with some great kinsman’s bone, 
As with a club, dash out my desperate brains ? 
O, look! methinks, I see my cousin’s ghost 
Seeking out Romeo, that did spit his body 
Upon a rapier’s point. — Stay, Tybalt, stay !— 
Romeo, I come !. this do I drink to thee.° 

[She throws herself on the Bed. 


and perhaps contains a greater number of bones than are to be 
found in any other repository of the same kind in England. 

4 «The mandrake,” says Thomas Newton in bis Herbal, “ has 
been idly represented as a creature having life, and engendered 
under the earth of the seed of some dead person that hath beene 
convicted and put to death for some felonie or murther, and that 
they had the same in such dampish and funerall places where the 
saide convicted persons were buried.” So in Webster’s Duchess 
of Malfy, 1623: «1 have this night digg’d up a mandrake, and am 
grown mad with it.” See 2 Henry VI, Act iii. se. 2, note 14. 

5 Such is the closing line of this speech in the quarto of 1597. 
The other old copies give it thus : “ Romeo, Romeo, Romeo, here’s 
drink : I drink to thee ;” where a stage-direction “ [ Here drink.]” 
has evidently got misprinted as a part of the text. The oldest 
reading is retained by all modern editors except Knight, Collier, 
and Verplanck.— Coleridge remarks upon the passage thus: 
«Shakespeare provides for the finest decencies. It would have 
been too bold a thing for a girl of fifteen ;— but she swallows the 
draught in a fit of fright.” Schlegel has the same thought : “ Her 
imagination falls into an uproar, —so many terrors bewilder the 
tender brain of the maiden, — and she drinks off the cup in a 


12* 


- 


138 ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT IV. 


SCENE IV. Caputer’s Hall. 


Enter Lady Caruuer and the Nurse. 
Eady C. Hold, take these keys, and fetch more 


spices, nurse. 
Nurse. They call for dates and quinces in the 
pastry.’ [ Exit. 


Enter Capu.et. 


Cap. Come, stir, stir, stir! the second cock hath 
crow’d, . 
The curfew bell hath rung, ’tis three o’clock. — 
Look to the bak’d meats, good Angelica : 
Spare not for cost. 

Lady C. Go, go, you cot-quean, go; 
Get you to bed: "faith, you’ll be sick to-morrow 
For this night’s watching.’ 

Cap. No, not a whit: What! I have watch’d ere 

now 
All night for lesser cause, and ne’er been sick. 
Lady C. Ay, you have been a mouse-hunt® in 
your time ; 
But I will watch you from such watching now. 
[Exit Lady CaPpuuer. 


tumult, to drain which with composure would have evinced a too 
masculine resolvedness.” H. 

1 The room where the pastry was made. 
_® The old copies assign this speech to the Nurse. Jt was trans- 
ferred to Lady Capulet at the suggestion of Z. Jackson, who per- 
tinently asks, — « Can we imagine that a nurse would take so great 
a liberty with her master, as to call him a cot-quean, and order him 
to bed?” Besides, the Nurse bas just been sent forth by her mis- 
tress to “ fetch more spices.””— Cot-quean was a term for a man 
who busied himself overmuch in women’s affairs : so used down 
to the time of Addison, as appears from the Spectator, No. 482. 

H. 
3 The animal called the mouse-hunt is the martin, which, being 


—— 


SC. V. ROMEO AND JULIET. 139 


Cap. A jealous-hood, a jealous-hood ! — Now, 
fellow, 
What’s there ? 


Enter Servants, with Spits, Logs, and Baskets. 


1 Serv. Things for the cook, sir; but I know not 
what. 
Cap. Make haste, make haste. [E2it 1 Serv.] — 
Sirrah, fetch drier logs: 
Call Peter, he will show thee where they are. 
2 Serv. L have a head, sir, that will find out logs, 
And never trouble Peter for the matter. [ Exit. 
Cap. ’Mass, and well said ; a merry whoreson, ha! 
Thou shalt be logger-head. — Good Father ! ’tis day: 
The county will be here with music straight, 
[ Music within. 
For so he said be would. —I hear him near : — 
Nurse! — Wife !— what, ho !— what, nurse, I say ! 


Re-enter the Nurse. 


Go, waken Juliet; go, and trim her up: 

I'll go and chat with Paris. — Hie, make haste, 
Make haste! the bridegroom he is come already: 
Make haste, I say! [ Exeunt. 


SCENE V. 


Juurer’s Chamber; JunieT on the Bed. 


Enter the Nurse. 
Nurse. Mistress! — what, mistress! — Juliet ! — 
fast, I warrant her, she :— 


of the weasel tribe, prowls about in the night for its prey. Cat 
afier kinde, good mouse-hunt,” is one of Heywood’s proverbs. 


140 ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT IV. 


Why, lamb! why, lady !—fie, you slug-a-bed ! — 


Why, love, I say! — madam! sweet-heart ! — why, 
bride ! 

What! not a word ?— you take your pennyworths 
now : ) 


Sleep for a week; for the next.night, I warrant, 
The county Paris hath set up his rest,! 

That you shall rest but little. — God forgive me 
(Marry and amen !) how sound is she asleep ! 

I needs must wake her. — Madam, madam, madam ! 
Ay, let the county take you in your bed: 

He'll fright you up, i’faith. — Will it not be? 
What, drest! and in your clothes! and down again! 
I must needs wake you. Lady! lady, lady ! 
Alas! alas! — Help! help! my lady’s dead !— 

O, well-a-day, that ever I was born !— 

Some aqua-vite, ho! ——my lord! my lady! 


Enter Lady Capruer. 
Lady C. What noise is here? 


Nurse. O, lamentable day ! 
Lady C. What is the matter? 
Nurse. Look, look! O, heavy day! 


Lady C. Ome! Ome '—my child, my only life, 
Revive, look up, or I will die with thee |! — 
Help, help !—call help. 


Enter Caputet. 


Cap. For shame! bring Juliet forth ; her lord ig 
come. 


1 To set up one’s rest was the Same as to make up one’s mind. 
In The Merchant of Venice, Act ii. se. 2, Launcelot has a similar 
quibble: «As I have set up my rest torun away, so I will not rest 
till I have run some ground.” See, also, The Comedy of Errors, 
Act iv. sc. 3, note 2. H, 


SC. V. ROMEO AND JULIET. 141 


Nurse. She’s dead, deceas’d, she’s dead ; alack 
the day! 
Lady C. Alack the day! she’s dead, she’s dead, 
she’s dead. 
Cap. Ha! let me see her. — Out, alas! she’s cold ; 
Her blood is settled ; and her joints are stiff ; 
Life and these lips have long been separated : 
Death lies on her, like an untimely frost 
Upon the sweetest flower of all the field.’ 
Nurse. O, lamentable day ! 


Lady C. O, woful time ! 
Cap. Death, that hath ta’en her hence to make 
me wail, 


Ties up my tongue, and will not let me speak. 


Enter Friar Laurence and Paris, with Musicians. 


Fri. Come, is the bride ready to go to church? 
Cap. Ready to go, but never to return. — 

O son! the night before thy wedding-day 

Hath death lain with thy wife: there she lies, 

Flower as she was, deflowered by him. 

Death is my son-in-law, death is my heir 5 

My daughter he hath wedded! I will die, 

And leave him all ; life, living, all is death’s.® 
Par. Have I thought long to see this morning’s 

face,* 
And doth it give me such a sight as this ? 


2 In the first quarto, this speech stands thus : 


~ 
“Stay! let me see: all pale and wan. 
Accursed time! unfortunate old man!” H. 


3 So in the old copies, but commonly changed in modern edi- 
tions to, “life leaving, all is death’s.”’ : Il. 
4 The quarto of 1597 continues the speech of Paris thus: 
« And doth it now present such prodigies 1 


Accurst, unhappy, miserable man, 
Forlorn, forsaken, destitute I am 5 


142 ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT IV 


Lady C. Accurs’d, unhappy, wretched, hateful 
day ! 
Most miserable hour, that e’er time saw 
In lasting labour of his pilgrimage ! 
But one, poor one, one poor and loving child, 
But one thing to rejoice and solace in, 
And cruel death hath catch’d it from my sight. 
Nurse. O woe! O woeful, woeful, woeful day ! 
Most lamentable day! most woeful day, 
That ever, ever, I did yet behold ! 
O day! O day! O day! O hateful day ! 
Never was seen so black a day as this: 
O woeful day, O woeful day ! 
Par. Beguil’d, divorced, wronged, spited, slain! 
Most detestable death, by thee beguil’d, 
By cruel, cruel thee quite overthrown ! — 
O love! O life! —not life, but love in death! 
Cap. Despis’d, distressed, hated, martyr’d, kill’d! 
Uncomfortable time! why cam’st thou now 
To murder, murder our solemnity ?— 
O child! O child!—my soul, and not my child! — 
Dead art thou !—alack! my child is dead : 
And with my child my joys are buried! 
Fri. Peace, ho, for shame! confusion’s cur 
lives not 
In these confusions. Heaven and yourself 
Had part in this fair maid; now Heaven hath all, 
And all the better is it for the maid: 
Your part in her you could not keep from death 3 
But Heaven keeps His part in eternal life. 
The most you sought was her promotion ; 


Born to the world to bea slave in it: ' 
Distrest. remediless, and unfortunate. e* 
Oh heavens! Oh nature! wherefore did you make me 
To live so vile, so wretched as I shall 2” 


SC. V. ROMEO AND JULIET. 143 


For ’twas your heaven she should be advanc’d: 
And weep ye now, seeing she is advanc’d 
Above the clouds, as high as heaven itself ? 
O! in this love you love your child so ill, 
That you run mad, seeing that she is well : 
She’s not well married that lives n*farried long, 
But she’s best married that dies married young. 
Dry up your tears, and stick your rosemary 
On this fair corse ; and, as the custom is, 
In all her best array bear her to church ; 
For though fond nature bids us all lament,’ 
Yet nature’s tears are reason’s merriment. 
Cap. All things, that we ordained festival, 
Turn from their office to black funeral: 
Our instruments, to melancholy bells ; 
Our wedding cheer, to a sad burial feast ; 
Our solemn hymns to sullen dirges change ; 
Our bridal flowers serve for a buried corse, 
And all things change them to the contrary. 
Fri. Sir, go you in, —and, madam, go with 
him ; — 
And go, sir Paris: —every one prepare 
To follow this fair corse unto her grave. 
The heavens do lower upon you, for some ill ; 
Move them no more, by crossing their high will. 
[Exeunt Cap., Lady Cap., Paris, and Friar. 
1 Mus. ’Faith, we may put up our pipes, and be 
gone. 
Nurse. Honest good fellows, ah! put up, put up; 
For, well you know, this is a pitiful case. [ Batt. 
1 Mus. Ay, by my troth, the case may be 
amended. 


5 All the old copies except the folio of 1632 have some instead 
of fond. — In all, of the preceding line, is from the first quarto 5 
the later copies having And in. H. 


144 ROMEO AND JULIET. 


Enter PetEr.® 


Pet. Musicians, O, musicians! «Heart’s Ease, 
Heart’s Ease ;” O! an you will have me live, play 
*‘Heart’s Ease.” 

1 Mus. Why «Heart’s Ease?” 

Pet. O, musicians! because my heart itself plays 
‘¢My heart is full of woe.”7 OQ! play me some 
merry dump, to comfort me. 

2 Mus. Not a dump we: ’tis no time to play now. 

Pct. You will not, then? 

2 Mus. No. 

Pet. I will, then, give it you soundly. 

1 Mus. What will-you give us? 

Pet. No money, on my faith; but the gleek: I 
will give you the minstrel.® 

1 Mus. Then will I give you the serving-creature. 


§ Such is the stage-direction of the undated quarto and the fo- 
lio of 1623. The quartos of 1599 and 1609 have, « Enter Will 
Kemp ;” which shows that Kemp was the original performer of 
Peter’s part. It seems not unlikely that this part of the scene was 
written on purpose for Kemp to display his talents in, as there could 
hardly be any other reason for such a piece of buffoonery. Cole- 
ridge has the following upon it : “ As the audience know that Juliet 
is not dead, this scene is, perhaps, excusable. But it is a strong 
warning to minor dramatists not to introduce at one time many 
separate characters agitated by one and the same circumstance. 
It'is difficult to understand what effect, whether that of pity or of 
laughter, Shakespeare meant to produce 3-—— the occasion and the 
characteristic speeches are so little in harmony! For example, 
what the Nurse says is excellently suited to the Nurse’s character, 
but grotesquely unsuited to the occasion.” H. 

7 This is the burthen of the first stanza of A Pleasant New Bal- 
Jad of Two Lovers: « Hey hoe! my heart is full of woe.?—A 
dump was formerly the term for a grave or melancholy strain in 
music, vocal or instrumental. It also signified a kind of poetical 
elegy. A merry dump is no doubt a purposed absurdity put into 
the mouth of Master Peter. 

° A pun is here intended. A gleekman, or gligman, is a min- 
strel. To give the gleek meant also to pass a jest upon a person, 
to make him appear ridiculous ; a gleek being a jest or scoff. 


SC. V. ' ROMEO AND JULIET. 1455 


Pet. Then will I lay the serving-creature’s dag- 
ger on your pate. I will carry no crotchets: Vil 
re you, I'll fa you: Do you note me? 

1 Mus. An you re us, and fa us, you note us. 

2 Mus. ‘Pray you, put up your dagger, and put 
out your wit. 

Pet. Then have at you with my wit: I will dry- 
beat you with an iron wit, and put up my iron dag- 
ger.— Answer me like men: 


When griping grief the heart doth wound, 
And doleful dumps the mind oppress, 
Then music, with her silver sound,? — 


Why, “silver sound?” why, “ music, with her silver 
sound ?”” What say you, Simon Catling ?”° 

1 Mus. Marry, sir, because silver hath a sweet 
sound. 

Pet. Pretty!!! What say you, Hugh Rebeck ? 

2 Mus. I say —* silver sound,” because musicians 
sound for silver. 

Pet. Pretty too !— What say you, James Sound- 
post ? 

3 Mus ’Faith, I know not what to say. 

Pet. 0, Lcry you mercy! you are the singer: 


9 This is part of a song by Richard Edwards, to be found in 
the Paradice of Dainty Devices. Another copy of this song is to 
be found in Percy’s Reliques of Ancient English Poetry. — The 
second line of Peter’s quotation is wanting in all the old copies 
except the first quarto ; and in all the old copies the words, «Then 
have at you with my wit,” are made a part of the preceding 
speech. H. 

10 This worthy takes his name from a small Jutestring made of 
catgut ; his companion the fiddler, from an instrument of the same 
name mentioned by many of our old writers, and recorded by Mil- 
ton as an instrument of mirth: > 


« When the merry bells ring round, 
And the joyfal rebecks sound.” 


11 So the first quarto; the other old copies, Prates, or Pratest. 
VOL. X. 13 10 H. 


146 ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT V 


I will say for you. It is— ‘music, with her silver 
sound,” because such fellows as you have seldom 
gold for sounding : 


Then music, with her silver sound, 
With speedy help doth lend redress. 
[ Exit, singing. 
1 Mus. What a pestilent knave is this same ! 
2 Mus. Hang him, Jack! Come, we'll in here ; 
tarry for the mourners, and stay dinner. [| Ezeunt. 


ACT VY. 


SCENE I. Mantua. A Street. 


Enter Romeo. 


Rom. If I may trust the flattering eye of sleep,! 
My dreams presage some joyful news at hand: 
My bosom’s lord sits lightly in his throne ; 

And, all this day, an unaccustom’d spirit 

Lifts me above the ground with cheerful thoughts.” 

I dreamt, my lady came and found me dead, 

(Strange dream! that gives a dead man leave to 
think,) 

And breath’d such life with kisses in my lips, 


- Thus the first quarto. The later copies read, “If I may trust 
ine flattering truth of sleep.” The sense appears to be, If I may 
trust the visions with which my eye flattered me in sleep. 

* These three last lines are very gay and pleasing. But why 
does Shakespeare give Romeo this involuntary cheerfulness just 
before the extremity of unhappiness? Perhaps to show the vanity 
of trusting to those uncertain and casual exaltations or depressions, 
which many consider as certain foretokens of good and evil. — 
JOHNSON. 


SC. I. ROMEO AND JULIET. 147 


That I reviv’d, and was an emperor. 
Ah me! how sweet is love itself possess’d, 
When but love’s shadows are so rich in joy !— 


Enter BALTHASAR. 


News from Verona ! — How now, Balthasar ! 
Dost thou not bring ime letters from the friar? 
How doth my lady? Is my father well ? 
How fares my Juliet ?* That I ask again ; 
For nothing can be ill, if she be well. 

Bal. Then she is well, and nothing can be ill: 
Her body sleeps in Capels’ monument, 

And her immortal part with angels lives. 

I saw her laid low in her kindred’s vault, 
And presently took post to tell it you: 

O! pardon me for bringing these ill news, 
Since you did leave it for my office, sir. 

Rom. Is it e’en so? then I defy you, stars ! — 
Thou know’st my lodging: get me ink and paper, 
And hire post-horses; I will hence to-night. 

Bal. I do beseech you, sir, have patience : * 
Your looks are pale and wild, and do import 
Some misadventure. 

Rom. Tush! thou art deceiv’d 5 
Leave me, and do the thing I bid thee do. 

Hast thou no letters to me from the friar? 

Bal. No, my good lord. 

Rom. No matter; get thee gone, 
And hire those horses: I'll be with thee straight. — 

[Ezit BALTHASAR. 


3 So the first quarto ; the later copies, “ How doth my lady 


Juliet 2” thus repeating a part of the foregoing line. H. 
4 So all the old editions except the first, which reads, —“ Par- 
don me, sir, I will not leave you thus.” — Defy, in the first line of 


the preceding speech, is from the earliest copy ; the others having 
deny. B 


148 ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT V. 


Well, Juliet, I will lie with thee to-night. 

Let’s see for means :— O, mischief ! thou art swift 
To enter in the thoughts of desperate men ! 

I do remember an apothecary, — 

And hereabouts he dwells, — whom late I noted 
In tatter’d weeds, with overwhelming brows, 
Culling of simples: meagre were his looks ; 
Sharp misery had worn him to the bones: 

And in his needy shop a tortoise hung, 
-An alligator stuff’d,’ and other skins 

Of ill-shap’d fishes; and about his shelves 

A beggarly account of empty boxes, 

Green earthen pots, bladders, and musty seeds, 
Remnants of packthread, and old cakes of roses, 
Were thinly scatter’d, to make up a show. 
Noting this penury, to myself I said, — 

An if a man did need a poison now, 

Whose sale is present death in Mantua, 

Here lives a caitiff wretch would sell it. him. 

O! this same thought did but forerun my need 3 
And this same needy man must sell it me. 

As I remember, this should be the house: 

Being holiday, the beggar’s shop is shut. — 
What, ho! apothecary ! 


Enter the Apothecary. . 
Ap. Who calls so loud ? 
Rom. Come hither, man.—TI see that thou art 


poor ; 
Hold, there is forty ducats: let me have 


5 We learn from Nashe’s Have with You to Saffron Walden, 
1596, that a stuffed alligator then made part of the furniture of an 
apothecary’s shop: “ He made an anatomie of a rat, and after 
hanged her over his head, instead of an apothecary’s crocodile or 
dried allig xtor.”’ 


sc. I. ROMEO AND JULIET. * 149 


A dram of poison ; such soon-speeding gear 
As will disperse itself through all the veins, 
That the life-weary taker may fall dead ; 
And that the trunk may be discharg’d of breath 
As violently, as hasty powder fir’d 
Doth hurry from the fatal cannon’s womb. 
Ap. Such mortal drugs I have; but Mantua’s law 
Is death to any he that utters them. 
Rom. Art thou so bare, and full of wretchedness, 
And fear’st to die? famine is in thy cheeks, 
Need and oppression starveth in thy eyes,° 
Contempt and beggary hang upon thy back, 
The world is not thy friend, nor the world’s law: 
The world affords no law to make thee rich ; 
Then, be not poor, but break it, and take this. 
Ap. My poverty, but not my will, consents. 
Rom. I pay thy poverty, and not thy will. 
Ap. Put this in any liquid thing you will, 
And drink it off; and, if you had the strength 
Of twenty men, it would despatch you straight. 
Rom. There is thy gold; worse poison to men’s 
. souls, 
Doing more murders in this loathsome world, 
Than these poor compounds that thou may’st not 
sell : 
I sell thee poison, thou hast sold me none. 
Farewell; buy food, and get thyself in flesh. — 


6 Thus the old copies. Otway copied the line in his Caius 
Marius, only-changing starveth to stareth, which has been adopted 
into the text by Singer, and may be right. Pope changed « starv- 
eth in thy eyes” to “stare within thy eyes.” As it stands, the 
expression conveys a strong sense, thouglt it will hardly bear an- 
alysing. The two nouns with a verb in the singular was not 
ungrammatical according to old usage.—In the next line, the 
first quarto has, “ Upon thy back hangs ragged misery,” which is 
strangely preferred by some editors. H. 


13 * 


150 ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT V. 


Come, cordial, and not poison, go with me 
To Juliet’s grave, for there must I use thee. 
[Exeunt 


SCENE II. Friar Lavrence’s Cell. 


Enter Friar Joun. 
John. Holy Franciscan friar! brother, hot! 


Enter Friar LAURENCE 


Lau. This same should be the voice of friar 
John. — 

Welcome from Mantua: What says Romeo? 
Or, if his mind be writ, give me his letter. 

John. Going to find a barefoot brother out, 
One of our order, to associate me,! 
Here in this city visiting the sick, 
And finding him, the searchers of the town, 
Suspecting that we both were in a house 
Where the infectious pestilence did reign, 
Seal’d up the doors, and would not let us forth ; 
So that my speed to Mantua there was stay’d. 


! Each friar had always a companion assigned him by the su- 
perior, when he asked leave to go out. In the Visitatio Notabilis 
de Seleborne, a curious record printed in White’s Natural History 
of Selborne, Wykeham enjoins the canons not to go abroad with- 
out leave from the prior, who is ordered on such occasions to as- 
sign the brother a companion, “ne suspicio sinistra vel seandalum 
oriatur.”” There is a similar regulation in the statutes of Trinity 
College, Cambridge. So in the poem: 


“ Apace our frier John to Mantua him hyes, 
And, for because in Italy it is a wonted gyse 
That friers in the towne should seldome walke alone, 
But of theyr covent ay should be accompanide with one 
Of his profession, straight a house he fyndeth out, 
In mynde to take some frier to walke the town about.” 


Shakespeare has departed from the poem, in supposing the pesti 
lence to rage at Verona instead of Mantua. 


sc. III. ROMEO AND JULIET. 15l 


Lau. Who bare my letter, then, to Romeo? 
John. I could not send it, —here it is again, — 
Nor get a messenger to bring it thee, 
So fearful were they of infection. 
Lau. Unhappy fortune! by my brotherhood, 
The letter was not nice,” but full of charge, 
Of dear import ; and the neglecting it 
May do much danger. Friar John, go hence 5 
Get me an iron crow, and bring it straight 
Unto my cell. 
John. Brother, I'll go and bring it thee.  [Ezzit. 
Lau. Now must I to the monument alone. 
Within this three hours will fair Juliet wake ; 
She will beshrew me much, that Romeo 
Hath had no notice of these accidents 5 
But I will write again to Mantua, 
And keep her at my cell till Romeo come: 
Poor living corse, clos’d in a dead man’s tomb ! 


[ Exit. 
SCENE III. 


A Church-Yard: in it a Monument belonging to 
the Capulets. 


Enter Paris, and his Page, bearing Flowers and a 
Torch. 


Par. Give me thy torch, boy: hence, and stand 
aloof ;— 
Yet put it out, for I would not be seen. 
Under yond’ yew-trees lay thee all along,’ 


2 That is, was not on a frivial or idle matter, but on a subject 
of importance. See Act iii. sc. 1, note 9. 

1 All the old copies except the first quarto have “young trees” 
instead of “yew-trees.”’ H. 


152 ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT V- 


Holding thine ear close to the hollow ground ; 
So shall no foot upon the church-yard tread, 
(Being loose, unfirm, with digging up of graves,) 
But thou shalt hear it: whistle then to me, 
As signal that thou hear’st something approach. 
Give me those flowers. Do as I bid thee; go. 
Page. I am almost afraid to stand alone 
Here in the church-yard ; yet I will adventure. 
, [ Retires. 
Par, Sweet flower, with flowers thy bridal bed 
I strew. 
O woe! thy canopy is dust and stones, 
Which with sweet water nightly I will dew; 
Or, wanting that, with tears distill’d by moans: 
The obsequies, that I for thee will keep, 
Nightly shall be, to strew thy grave and weep.” 
[The Boy whistles. 
The boy gives warning, something doth approach. 
What cursed foot wanders this way to-night, 
To cross my obsequies, and true-love’s rite? 
What! with a torch ?—mufile me, night, awhile. 
[ Retires. 


Enter Romro and BautHasar, with a Torch, Mat- 
tock, &c. 


Kom. Give me that mattock, and the wrenching 
iron. 


* Instead of these six lines, the quarto of 1597 has the follow- 
ing seven, which are preferred by some editors : 


“Sweet flower, with flowers I strew thy bridal bed: 
Sweet tomb, that in thy circuit dost contain 
The perfect model of eternity, 
Fair Juliet, that with angels dost remain, 
Accept this latest favour at my hands, 
That living honour’d thee, and, being dead, 
With funeral praises do adorn thy tomb.” E. 


SC. [1I. ROMEO AND JULIET. 153 


Hold, take this letter: early in the morning 
See thou deliver it to my lord and father. 
Give me the light: Upon thy life I charge thee, 
Whate’er thou bear’st or seest, stand all aloof, 
And do not interrupt me in my course. 
Why I descend into this bed of death, 
Is, partly, to behold my lady’s face ; 
But, chiefly, to take thence from her dead finger 
A precious ring, a ring that I must use 
In dear employment. ‘Therefore hence, begone: 
But if thou, jealous, dost return to pry 
In what I further shall intend to do, 
By Heaven, I will tear thee joint by joint, 
And strew this hungry church-yard with thy limbs. 
The time and my intents are savage-wild ; 
More fierce, and more inexorable far, 
Than empty tigers, or the roaring sea. 
Bal. I will be gone, sir, and not trouble you. 
Rom. So shalt thou show me friendship. —Take 
thou that : 

Live, and be prosperous; and farewell, good fellow. 
Bal. For all this same, I’ll hide me hereabout : 
His looks I fear, and his intents I doubt. [Retzres. 

Rom. Thou detestable maw, thou womb of death, 
Gorg’d with the dearest morsel of the earth, 
Thus I enforce thy rotten jaws to open, 
[Breaking open the Door of the Monument. 
And, in despite, I’ll cram thee with more food! 
Par. This is that banish’d haughty Montague, 
That murder’d my love’s cousin ;— with which grief, 
It is supposed, the fair creature died ; — 
And here is come to do some villainous shame 
To the dead bodies: I will apprehend him. — 
[ Advancing 
Stop thy unhallow’d toil, vile Montague : 


154 ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT V. 


Can vengeance be pursued further than death ? 
Condemned villain, I do apprehend thee : 
Obey, and go with me; for thou must die. 
Kom. I must, indeed; and therefore came I 
hither. — 
Good gentle youth, tempt not a desperate man; 
Fly hence and leave me :—think upon these gone; 
Let them affright thee. —I beseech thee, youth, 
Heap not another sin upon my head, 
By urging me to fury :—O, begone ! 
By Heaven, I love thee better than myself ; 
For I come hither arm’d against myself : 
Stay not, begone ;— live, and hereafter say, 
A madman’s mercy bade thee run away. 
Par. I do defy thy conjurations,° 
And apprehend thee for a felon here. 
Rom. Wilt thou provoke me? then, have at thee, 
boy. ; [ They fight. 
Page. O Lord! they fight: I will go call the watch. 
[Exit Page. 
Par. O, I am slain! [Falls.] —If thou be mer- 


ciful, ; 
Open the tomb, lay me with Juliet. [ Dies. . 
Rom. In faith, I will.— Let me peruse this 
face :— 


Mercutio’s kinsman, noble county Paris. — 
What said my man, when my betossed soul 
Did not attend him as we rode? I think 

He told me, Paris should have married Juliet ; 


* So the quarto of 1597: that of 1599 has commiration; the 
later copies, commiseration. Conjurations are earnest requests or 
entreaties: the verb conjure is still much used in the same sense, 
Mr. Collier, however, retains the later reading, alleging that «the 
sense of commiseration is clear ; not so of conjurations.”’ What 
can the man mean? Conjurations is just the word wanted fot 
the place, H. 


SC. Tit. ROMEO AND JULIET. 155 


Said he not so? or did I dream it so?- 

Or am I mad, hearing him talk of Juliet, 

To think it was so? —O! give me thy hand, 

One writ with me in sour misfortune’s book ! 

Tl bury thee in a triumphant grave, — 

A grave? O, no! a lantern, slaughter’d youth :* 

For here lies Juliet, and her beauty makes 

This vault a feasting presence full of light. 

Death, lie thou there, by a dead man interr’d. — 
[Laying Paris in the Monument. 

How oft, when men are at the point of death, 

Have they been merry ? ‘which their keepers call 

A lightning before death:° O! how may I 

Call this a lightning ?—O, my love! my wife! 

Death, that hath suck’d the honey of thy breath, 

Hath had no power yet upon thy beauty :° 


4 A lantern does not here signify an enclosure for a lighted can- 
dle, but a louvre, or what in ancient records is styled lanternium ; 
that is, a spacious round or octagonal turret full of windows, by 
means of which cathedrals and sometimes balls are illuminated 5 
such as the beautiful lantern at Ely Minster. The same word, 
with the same sense, occurs in Churchyard’s Siege of Edinborough 
Castle: « This lofty seat and /antern of that land like lodestarre 
stode, and lokte o’er ev’ry streete.” © And in Holland’s translation 
of Pliny: « Hence came the louvers and lanternes reared over the 
roofes of temples.” A presence is a public room, which is at times 
the presence-chumber of a sovereign. 

5 This idea frequently occurs in old dramas. So in The Down- 
fa.l of Robert Earl of Huntingdon, 1601: 


“J thought it was a lightning before death, 
Too sudden to’be certain.” 


6 So in Sidney’s Arcadia: “ Death being able to divide the 
soule, but not the beauty, from her body.” — This speech yields 
another apt instance of the care and skill with which the “ cor- 
rected, augmented, and amended” copy of this play was elabo- 
rated. The quarto of 1597 gives merely ihe following: 


« Ah, dear Juliet! 
How well thy beauty doth become this grave i 
O! I believe that unsubstantial death 
Is amorous, and doth court my love: 


156 ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT VY. 


Thou art not conquer’d ; beauty’s ensign yet 
Is crimson in thy lips and in thy cheeks, 

And death’s pale flag is not advanced there. — 
Tybalt, liest thou there in thy bloody sheet ? 
O! what more favour can I do to thee, 

Than with that hand that cut thy youth in twain, 
To sunder his that was thine enemy ? 

Forgive me, cousin! — Ah, dear Juliet ! 

Why art thou yet so fair? Shall I believe 
That unsubstantial death is amorous 37 

And that the lean abhorred monster keeps 
‘Thee here in dark to be his paramour? 

For fear of that, I will still stay with thee, 


Therefore will I, O here, O ever here! 

Set up my everlasting rest, 

With worms, that are thy chamber-maids. 

Come, desperate pilot, now at once run on 

The dashing rocks thy sea-sick weary barge: 

Here’s to my love. — O, true apothecary ! 

Thy drugs are swift: thus with a kiss I die.” H. 


7 The old copies, except the first quarto, read thus: «I will bee 
lieve, shall I believe that unsubstantial death is amorous.” Where 
“T will believe” is obviously but another reading for «shall I be- 
lieve.” Collier, however, retains both! — A connection is trace- 
able between parts of this speech and some lines in Daniel’s Com- 
plaint of Rosamond, published in 1592, In the first five lines the 
ghost of Rosamond is speaking of her death, and in the others is 
reporting what her royal lover spoke when he came and found her 
dead: 


“ But now, the poison, spread through all my veins, 
’Gan dispossess my living senses quite ; 
And nought-respecting death, the last of pains, 
Plac’d his pale colours, th’ ensign of his might, 
Upon his new-got spoil before his right.” 


“Ah! now, methinks, I see, death, dallying, seeks 
Lo entertain itself in love’s sweet place: 
Decayed roses of discolour’d cheeks 
Do yet retain dear notes of former grace, 
And ugly death sits fair within her face ; 
Sweet remnants resting of vermilion red, 
That death itself doubts whether she be dead.” H. 


SOSTIE ROMEO AND JULIET. 157 


And never from this palace of dim night 
Depart again :* here, here will I remain 
With worms that are thy chambermaids ; O! here 
Will I set up my everlasting rest, 
And shake the yoke of inauspicious stars 
From this world-wearied flesh.— Eyes, look your 
last ! 

Arms, take your last embrace! and lips, O, you. 
The doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss 
A dateless bargain to engrossing death !— 
Come, bitter conduct,? come, unsavoury guide ! 
Thou desperate pilot, now at once run on 
The dashing rocks thy sea-sick weary bark ! 
Here’s to my love! [Drinks.] —O, true apothecary ! 
Thy drugs are quick.— Thus with a kiss I die. 

[ Dies. 


Enter, at the other end of the Church-yard, Friar 
LaurENCcE, with a Lantern, Crow, and Spade. 


Fri. St. Francis be my speed! how oft to-night 
Have my old feet stumbled at graves !'* —Who’s 
there ? 


8 All the old copies except the first quarto have a remarkable 
corruption here which is not easy to be accounted for. Whether 
the matter were a various reading by the Poet, or an interpolation 
by the players, is uncertain ; but the confusion it makes shows that 
it could not have been meant by Shakespeare as a part of the text. 
It may also be cited as proving that the folic must have been 
printed from one of the quarto copies. After the words, «« Depart 
again,” are added the following lines : 


« Come, lie thou in my arms. 
Here’s to thy health, where’er thou tumblest in. 
O, true apothecary! thy drugs are quick. 
Thus with a kiss I die. Depart again.” H. 
9 Conduct for conductor. So in a former scene: “ And fire- 
eyed fury be my conduct now.” 
10 This accident was reckoned ominous. So in King Richard 
III., Hastings, going to execution,-says, — “ Three times to-day 
VOL. X. 14 


» Se oo ee 


158 ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT V 


Bal. Here’s one, a friend, and one that knows 
you well. 

Fri. Bliss be upon you! Tell me, good my friend, 
What torch is yond’ that vainly lends his light 
To grubs and eyeless skulls? as I discern, 
It burneth in the Capels’ monument. 

Bal. It doth so, holy sir; and there’s my master, 
One that you love. 


Fri. Who is it? 

Bal. Romeo. 

Fri. How long hath he been there ? 

Bal. Full half an hour. 
Fri. Go with me to the vault. 
Bal. I dare not, sir: 


My master knows not but I am gone hence, 
And fearfully did menace me with death, 
If I did stay to look on his intents. 
Fri. Stay, then, Pil go alone. Fear comes upon 
me ; 
O! much I fear some ill unthrifty thing.” 
Bal. As I did sleep under this yew-tree here, 
I dreamt my master and another fought, 
And that my master slew him.’” 


my foot-cloth horse did stuwmble.’”” — After this line, some editors 
have added another from the first quarto, thus: “Who is it that 


consorts so Jate the dead ?”’ H. 
11 So the quarto of 1599 ; that of 1609 and the folio have “un- 
lucky thing.” i. 


12 This is one of the touches of nature that would have escaped 
the hand of any painter less attentive to it than Shakespeare. 
What happens to a person while he is under the manifest influence 
of fear, will seem to him, when he is recovered from it, like a dream. 
Homer represents Rhesus dying, fast asleep, and, as it were, be- 
holding his enemy in a dream, plunging a sword into his bosom. 
Eustathius and Dacier both applaud this image as very natural ; 
for a man in such a condition, says Mr. Pope, awakes no further 
than to see confusedly what environs him, and to think it not a 
reality, but a vision. — STEEVENs, 


SC. II. ROMEO AND JULIET. 159 


Fri. [Advancing.] Romeo! 
Alack, alack! what blood is this, which stains 
The stony entrance of this sepulchre 1— 
What mean these masterless and gory swords 
To lie discolour’d by this place of peace ?— 
| Entering the Monument. 
Romeo! O, pale!— Who else? what! Paris too? 
And steep’d in blood ?— Ah! what an unkind hour 
Is guilty of this lamentable chance ! — 
The lady stirs. [JuLIET wakes. 
Jul. O, comfortable friar! where is my lord ? 
I do remember well where I should be, 
And there I am. — Where is my Romeo? 
[Noise within. 
Fri. I hear some noise.— Lady, come from that 
nest 
Of death, contagion, and unnatural sleep. 
A greater Power than we can contradict 
Hath thwarted our intents; come, come away : 
Thy husband in thy bosom there lies dead ; 
And Paris too:, come, I'll dispose of thee 
Among a sisterhood of holy nuns. 
Stay not to question, for the watch is coming ; 
Come, go, good Juliet, —[Voise again.| I dare no 
longer stay. | [ Exit. 
Jul. Go, get thee hence, for I will not away.— 
What’s here? a cup, clos’d in my true love’s hand? 
Poison, I see, hath been his timeless end. — 
O churl! drink all, and leave no friendly drop, 
To help me after ?—TI will kiss thy lips ; 
Haply, some poison yet doth hang on them, 
To make me die with a restorative. [Kisses him. 
Thy lips are warm !** 


13 Shakespeare has been arraigned for making Romeo die be 


160 ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT V 


1 Watch. [Within.] Lead, boy: — Which way? 
Jul.. Yea, noise ?—then I’ll be brief. — O, happy 
dagger ! [ Snatching. Romro’s Dagger. 

This is thy sheath; [Stabs herself.] there rest, and 
let me die.“ © [Falls on Romeo, and dies. — 


Enter Watch, with the Page of Paris. 


Page. This is the place; there, where the torch 
doth burn. 
1 Watch. The ground is bloody: Search about 
the church-yard. 
‘Go, some of you, whoe’er you find, attach. — 
[ Exeunt some. 


fore Juliet awakes from her trance, and thus losing a happy op- 
portunity of introducing an affeeting scene between these unfor- 
tunate lovers. Schlegel remarks, that “the Poet seems to have 
hit upon what was best. There is a measure of agitation, beyond 
which all that is superadded becomes torture, or glides off inef- 
fectually from the already-saturated mind. In case of the cruel 
reunion of the lovers for an instant, Romeo’s remorse for his over- 
hasty self-murder, Juliet’s despair over her deceitful hope, at first 
cherished, then annihilated, that she was at the goal of her wishes, 
must have deviated into caricatures. Nobody surely doubts that 
Shakespeare was able to represent these with suitable force ; but 
bere every thing soothing was welcome, in order that we may not 
be frightened out of the melancholy, to which we willingly resign 
ourselves, by too painful discords. Why should we heap still 
more upon accident, that is already so guilty ? Wherefore shall 
not the tortured Romeo quietly 


‘Shake the yoke of inauspicious stars 
From his world-wearied flesh 7’ 


He holds his beloved in his arms, and, dying, cheers himself with 
a vision of everlasting marriage. She also seeks death, in a kiss, 
upon his lips. These Jast moments must belong unparticipated to 
tenderness, that we may hold fast to the thought, that love lives, 
although the lovers perish.” 

14 All the old copies except the first quarto have rust instead 
of rest. Mr. Dyce surely is right in saying that, “at such a mo- 
ment, the thoughts of Juliet were not likely to wander away to 
the future rusting of the dagger; she only wishes it, by resting 
in her bosom as in its sheath, to give her instant death,’ H. 


Na ha 4 
aa " ‘ ; 


SC. IIT. ROMEO AND JULIET. 161 


Pitiful sight! here lies the county slain 5 

And Juliet bleeding ; warm, and newly dead, 

Who here hath lain these two days buried. — 

Go, tell the prince, —run to the Capulets, — 

Raise up the Montagues, — some others search : — 
[Exeunt other Watchmen. 

We see the ground whereon these woes do lie 5 

But the true ground of all these piteous woes 

We cannot without circumstance descry. 


Enter some of the Watch, with BALTHASAR. 


2 Watch. Here’s Romeo’s man ; we found him in 
the church-yard. 

1 Watch. Hold him in safety, till the prince come 
hither. 


Enter another Watchman, with Friar LAURENCE. 


3 Watch. Here is a friar, that trembles, sighs, and 
weeps : 
We took this mattock and this spade from him, 
As he was coming from this church-yard side. 
1 Watch. A great suspicion: stay the friar too. 


Enter the Prince and Attendants. 


Prince. What misadventure is so early up, 
That calls our person from our morning’s rest ! 


Enter Carutet, Lady Capuier, and Others. 


Cap. What should it be, that they so shrieX 
abroad ? : 
Lady C. The people in the street cry — Romeo, 
Some — Juliet, and some — Paris; and all run 


With open outcry toward our monument. 
14* 11 


= sO 4 cis te 


162 ROMEO AND. JULIET. ACT V. 


Prince. What fear is this, which startles in our 
ears 77° 
1 Watch. Sovereign, here lies the county Paris 
slain ; 
And Romeo dead; and Juliet, dead before, 
Warm and new-kill’d. 
Prince. Search, seek, and know how this foul 
murder comes. 
1 Watch. Here isa friar, and slaughter’d Romeo’s 
man, ; 
With instruments upon them, fit to open 
These dead men’s tombs. 
Cap. O, Heaven! — O, wife ! look how our daugh- 
ter bleeds ! 
This dagger hath mista’en, —for lo! his house 
Js empty on the back of Montague, — 
And is mis-sheathed in my daughter’s bosom.'® 
Lady C. O me! this sight of death is as a bell, 
That warns my old age to a sepulchre. 


Enter MontaGue and Others. 


Prince. Come, Montague ; for thou art early up, 
To see thy son and heir more early down. 
Mon. Alas, my liege! my wife is dead to-night ; 17 


© The old copies have your instead of our. Johnson made 
the change, which, though perhaps not necessary to the sense, 
helps it a good deal. . H. 

6 The words « for lo!’ his house is empty on the back of Mon- 
tague,” are parenthetical. It appears that the dagger was an- 
ciently worn’ behind the back. So in Humor’s Ordinarie: “See 
you yon huge bum dagger at his back?’ And in The Longer 
Thou Livest the More Fool Thou Art, 1570: 


“Thou must wear thy sword by thy side, 
And thy dagger handsumly at thy backe.” 


17 After this line the quarto of 1597 adds: “ And young Ben 
volio is deceased too.” 


s 


Sc. III. ROMEO AND JULIET. 163 


Grief of my son’s exile hath stopp’d her breath : 
What further woe conspires against mine age? 

Prince. Look, and thou shalt see. 

Mon. O, thou untaught! what manners is in this, 
To press before thy father to a grave? 

Prince. Seal up the mouth of outcry for a while,*® 
Till we can clear these ambiguities, 
And know their spring, their head, their true descent 5 
And then will I be general of your woes, 
And lead you even to death. Meantime forbear, 
And let mischance be slave to patience. — 
Bring forth the parties of suspicion. 

Fri. I am the greatest, able to do least, 
Yet most suspected, as the time and place 
Doth make against me, of this direful murder ; 
And here I stand, both to impeach and purge 
Myself condemned, and myself excus’d. 

Prince. Then say at once what thou dost know 

in this. 

Fri. I will be brief, for my short date of breath 
Is not so long as is a tedious tale. 
Romeo, there dead, was husband to that Juliet ; 
And she, there dead, that Romeo’s faithful wife : 
I married them ; and their stolen marriage-day 
Was Tybalt’s dooms-day, whose untimely death 
Banish’d the new-made bridegroom from this city 5 
For whom, and not for Tybalt, Juliet pin’d. 
You, to remove that siege of grief from her, 
Betroth’d, and would have married her perforce, 
To county Paris: then comes she to me, 


18 The old copies have outrage instead of owtcry. It is not 
easy to see what business outrage can have in such a place. 
The change is taken from Mr. Collier’s second folio. It is sup- 
ported by the preceding passage, — “ All run with open outery 
toward our monument.” H. 


164 ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT V. 


And, with wild looks, bid me devise some means 

To rid her from this second marriage, 

Or in my cell there would she kill herself. 

Then gave I her, so tutor’d by my art, 

A sleeping potion; which so took effect 

As I intended, for it wrought on her 

The form of death: meautime I writ to Romeo, 

That he should hither come, as this dire night, 

To help to take her from her borrow’d grave, 

Being the time the potion’s force should cease. 

But he which bore my letter, friar John, 

Was stay’d by accident; and yesternight 

Return’d my letter back. Then, all alone, 

At the prefixed hour of her waking, 

Came I to take her from her kindred’s vault; 

Meaning to keep her closely at my cell, 

Till I conveniently could send to Romeo: 

But, when I came, (some minute ere the time 

Of her awakening,) here untimely lay 

The noble Paris and true Romeo dead. 

She wakes ; and I entreated her come forth, 

And bear this work of Heaven with patience : 

But then a noise did scare me from the tomb; 

And she, too desperate, would not go with me, 

But, as it seems, did violence on herself. 

All this T know; and to the marriage 

Her nurse is privy; and, if aught in this 

Miscarried by my fault, let my old life 

Be sacrific’d, some hour before his time, 

Unto the rigour of severest law. . 

Prince. We still have known thee for a holy 

man. — ; 

Where’s Romeo’s man? what can he say in this? 

Bal. 1 brought my master news of Juliet’s 

death ; 


Sc. Ill. ROMEO AND JULIET. 165, 


And then in post he came from Mantua, 

To this same place, to this same monument. 
This letter he early bid me give his father ; 

And threaten’d me with death, going in the vault, 
If I departed not, and left him there. 

Prince. Give me the letter, I will look on it. — 
Where is the county’s page, that rais’d the watch ? 
Sirrah, what made your master in this place? 

Page. He came with flowers to strew his lady’s 

grave, 
And bid me stand aloof, and so I did: 
Anon, comes one with light to ope the tomb, 
And, by and by, my master drew on him ; 
And then I ran away to call the watch. 
Prince. This letter doth make good the friar’s 
words, 
Their course of love, the tidings of her death; 
And here he writes, that he did buy a poison 
Of a poor ’pothecary, and therewithal 
Came to this Wault to die, and lie with Juliet. — 
Where be these enemies 1— Capulet ! Montague! 
See, what a scourge is laid upon your hate, 
That Heaven find means to kill your joys with love! 
And I, for winking at your discords, too, 
Have lost a brace of kinsmen:'* —all are punish’d. 

Cap. O, brother Montague! give me thy hand : 
This is my daughter’s jointure ; for no more 
Can I demand. 

Mon. But I can give thee more 5 
For I will raise her statue in pure gold ; 

That, while Verona by that name is known, 


19 Mercutio and Paris. Mercutio is expressly called the Prince’s 
kinsman in Act ili. sc. 43 and that Paris was also the Prince’s 
kinsman, may be inferred from what Romeo says: “ Let me pe- 
ruse this face ; Mercutio’s kinsman, noble county Paris.” 


166 ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT V_ 


There shall no figure at such rate be set, 
As that of true and faithful Juliet. 
Cap. As rich shall Romeo by his lady lie; 
Poor sacrifices of our enmity ! 
Prince. A glooming peace this morning with it 
brings ti 
The sun for sorrow will not show his head. 
Go hence, to have more talk of these sad things ; 
Some shall be pardon’d, and some punished :*! 
For never was a story of more woe, 
Than this of Juliet and her Romeo. [ Exeunt. 


20 The quarto of 1597 reads, “A gloomy peace.”’ To gloom 
is an ancient verb, used by Spenser and other old writers. 

21 This line has reference to the poem from which the fable is 
taken ; in which the Nurse is banished for concealing the mar- 
riage ; Romeo’s servant set at liberty, because he had only acted 
in obedience to his master’s orders ; the Apothecary is hanged ; 
while Friar Laurence was permitted to retire to a hermitage near 
Verona, where he ended his life in penitence and tranquillity. 


ae 
‘tr 


ON Abe 


& . 
Bee Ai 


INTRODUCTION * 


TO 


THE TRAGEDY OF HAMLET. 


* 

“TE story on which Shakespeare founded THE TRAGEDY oF 
HIAMLET, Prince oF Denmark, was told by Saxo Grammat- 
icus, the Danish historian, whose work was first printed in 1514, 
though written as early as 1204, The incidents as related by him 
were borrowed by Beileforest, and set forth in his Histoires T'rra- 
giques, 1564, It was probably through the French version of Belle- 
forest that the tale first found its way to the English stage. The 
only English translation that has come down to us was printed in 
1608 ; and of this only a single copy is known to have survived. 
he edition of 1608 was most likely a reprint ; but, if so, we have 
no means of ascertaining when it was first printed: Mr, Collier 
thinks there can be no doubt that it originally came from the press 
considerably before 1600. The only known copy is preserved 
among Capell’s books in the library of ‘Trinity College, Cam- 
bridge, and has been lately republished by Collier in his Shake- 
speare’s Library. It is entitled «The History of Hambiet.” 

As there told, the story is, both in matter and style, uncouth and 
barbarous in the last degree ; a savage, shocking tale of Just and 
murder, unredeemed by a single touch of art or fancy in the nar- 
rator. Perhaps there is nothing of the Poet’s achieving more won- 
derful than that he should have reared so superb a dramatic struct- 
ure out of materials so scanty and so revolting. The scene of the 
jacidents is laid before the introduction of Christianity into Den- 
mark, and when the Danish power held sway in England : further 
than this, the time is not specified. So much of the story as was 
made use of for the drama is soon told. ' 

Roderick, king of Denmark, divided his kingdom into proves 
inces, and placed governors in them. Among these were two val- 
ijant and warlike brothers, Horvendile and Fengon. The greatest 
honour that men of noble birth could at that time win, was by ex- 
ercising the art of piracy on the seas; wherein Horvendile sur- 
passed all others. Collere, king of Norway, was so wrought upon 


VOL. -X. 15 


170 HAMLET, PRINCE OF DENMARK. 


by his fame, that he challenged him to fight body to body; and 
the challenge was accepted on condition that the vanquished should 
lose all the riches he had in his ship, and the vanquisher should 
cause his body to be honourably buried. Collere was slain; and 
Horwendile, after making great havoc in Norway, returned home 
with a mass of treasure, most of which he sent to King Roderick, 
who thereupon gave him his daughter Geruth in marriage. Of 
this marriage proceeded Hamblet, the hero of the tale. 

All this so provoked the envy of Fengon, that he determined to 
kill his brother. So, baving secretly assembled certain men, when 
Horvendile was at a banquet with his friends, he suddenly set upon 
him and slew him; but managed his treachery with so much cun- 
ning that no man suspected him. Before doing this, he had cor 
rupted his brother’s wife, and was afterwards married to her. 
Young Hamblet, thinking that he was likely to fare no better than 
his father had done, went to feigning himself mad, and made as 
if he had utterly lost his wits ; wherein he used such craft that he 
became an object of ridicule to the satellites of the court. Many 
of his actions, however, were so shrewd, and his answers were 
often so fit, that men of a deeper reach began to suspect some- 
what, thinking that beneath his folly there lay hid a sharp and 
pregnant spirit. So they counselled the king to try measures for 
discovering his meaning. The plan hit upon for entrapping him 
was, to leave him with some beautiful woman in a secret place, 
where she could use her art upon him. ‘To this end they Jed him 
out into the woods, and arranged that the woman should there 
meet with him. One of the men, however, who was a friend of 
the Prince, warned him, by certain signs, of the danger that was 
threatening him: so he escaped that treachery. 

Among the king’s friends there was one who more than all the 
rest suspected Hamblet’s madness to be feigned 5 and he counsel- 
led the king to use some more subtle and crafty means for dis- 
covering his purpose. His device was, that the king should make 
as though he were going out on a long hunting excursion; and 
that, meanwhile, Hamblet should be shut up alone im’a chamber 
with his mother, some one being hidden behind the hangings to 
hear their speeches. It was thought that, if there were any craft 
in the Prince, he would easily discover it to his mother, not fear- 
ing that she would make known his secret intent. So, the plot 
being duly arranged, the counsellor went into the chamber secretly 
and hid himself behind the arras, not long before the queen and 
Hamblet came thither. But the Prince, suspecting some treach- 
erous practice, kept up his counterfeit of madness, and went to 
beating with his arms, as cocks use to strike with their wings, 
upon the hangings: feeling something stir under them, he eried, 
« A rat, a rat!’ and thrust his sword into them; which done, he 
pulled the counsellor out half dead, and made an end of him. 

Hamblet then has a long interview with his mother, who weeps 


laa tai 


INTRODUCTION. W711 


and torments herself, being sore grieved to see her only child made 
a mere mockery. He lays before her the wickedness of her life 
and the crimes of her husband, and also lets her into the secret of 
his madness being feigned. “Behold,” says he, «into what dis- 
tress I am fallen, and to what mischief your over-great lightness 
and want of wisdom have induced me, that I am constrained to 
play the madman to save my life, instead of practising arms, fol- 
lowing adventures, and seeking to make myself known as tbe true 
heir of the valiant and virtuous Horvendile. The gestures of a 
fool are fit for me, to the end that, guiding myself wisely therein, 
{ may preserve my life for the Danes, and the memory of my de- 
ceased father ; for the desire of revenging his death is so engraven 
in my heart, that, if I die not shortly, I hope to take so great ven- 
geance that these countries shall forever speak thereof. Never- 
theless, I must stay my time and occasion, lest by making over- 
great haste I be the cause of mine own ruin and overthrow. To 
conclude, weep not, madam, to see my folly, but rather sigh and 
lament your own offence ; for we are not to sorrow and grieve at 
other men’s vices, but for our own misdeeds and great follies.”’ 
The interview ends in an agreement of mutual confidence be- 
tween Hamblet and his mother; all her anger at his sharp re- 
proofs being forgotten in the joy she conceives, to behold the 
gallant spirit of her son, and to think what she might hope from 
his policy and wisdom. She promises to keep his secret faithful- 
ly, and to aid him all she can in his purpose of revenge ; swear- 
ing to him that she had often hindered the shortening of his life, 
and that she had never consented to the murder of his father. 
Fengon’s next device was, to send Hamblet into England, with 
secret letters to have him there put to death. Hamblet, again 
suspecting mischief, comes to some speech with his mother, and 
desires her not to make any show of grief at his departure, but 
rather to counterfeit gladness at being rid of his presence. He 
also counsels her to celebrate his funeral at the end of a year, and 
assures her that she shall then see him return from his voyage. 
Two of Fengon’s ministers being sent along with him with secret 
letters to the king of England, when they were at sea, the Prince, 
his companions being asleep, read their commission, and substi- 
tuted for it one requiring the messengers to be hung. After this 
was done, he returned to Denmark, and arrived the very day when 
the Danes were celebrating his funeral, supposing him to be dead. 
Fengon and his courtiers were then at their banquet, and Hamb- 
Jet’s arrival provoked them the more to drink and carouse 3 where- 
in Hamblet encouraged them, himself acting as butler, and keep- 
ing them supplied with liquor, until they were all laid drunk on the 
floor. When they were all fast asleep, he caused the hangings of 
the room to fall down and cover them; then, having nailed the 
edges fast to the floor so that none could escape, he set fire to the 
hall, and all were burnt to ceath. Fengen having previously 


| Wp HAMLET, PRINCE OF DENMARK. 


withdrawn to his chamber, Hamblet then went to him, and, after 
telling him what he had done, cut off his head with a sword. 

The next day, Hamblet makes an oration to the Danes, laying 
open to them his uncle’s treachery, and what*himself has dene in 
revenge of his father’s death ; whereupon he is unanimously elect- 
ed king. After his coronation, he goes to England again. Find- 
ing that the king of England has a plot for putting him to death, 
he manages to kill him, and returns to Denmark with two wives. 
He is afterwards assailed by his uncle Wiglerus, and finally be- 
trayed to death by one of his English wives named Hermetrude, 
who then marries Wigleras. 

There is, besides, an episodical passage in the tale, from which 
the Poet probably took some hints towards the part of his hero, 


especially his melancholy mood, and his suspicion that “ the spirit — 


he has seen may be a devil:” « In those days, the north parts of 
the world, living then under Satan’s Jaws, were full of enchanters, 
so that there was not any young gentleman that knew not some- 
thing therein sufficient to serve his turn, if need required; and so 
Hamblet, while his father lived, had been instructed in that devlish 
art, whereby the wicked spirit abuseth mankind, and advertiseth 
them, as he can, of things past. ° It toucheth not the matter herein 
to discover the parts of divination in man, and whether this Prince, 
by reason of his over-great melancholy, bad received those im- 
pressions, divining that which never any had before declared ; like 
such as are saturnists by complexion, who oftentimes speak of 
things which, their fury ceasing, they can hardly anderstand.” It 
is hardly needful to add, that Shakespeare makes his persons 
Christians, giving them the sentiments and manners of a mach 
later period than they have in the tale ; though he still places the 
scene at a time when England paid some sort of homage to the 
Danish crown, which was before the Norman conquest. 

The earliest edition of the tragedy, in its finished state, was a 
quarto pamphlet of fifty-one leaves, the title-page reading thus; 
“The Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark : By Wil- 
liam Shakespeare. Newly imprinted and enlarged to almost as 
much again as it was, according to the true and perfect copy. At 
London: Printed by J. R. for N. L., and are to be sold at his 
shop under St. Danstan’s Church, in Fleet-street. 1604.” The 
same text was reissued in the same form in 1605, and again in 
1611; besides an undated edition, which is commonly referred to 
1607, as it was entered at the Stationers’ in the fall of that year. 
In the folio of 1623, it stands the eighth of the tragedies, and is 
without any marking of the Acts and scenes save in the first two 
Acts, The folio also omits several passages that are among the 
best in the play, and some of them highly important to the right 
understanding of the hero’s character. All these are duly attend- 
ed to in our notes, so that they need not be specified here. On 
the other hand, the folio has a few short passages, and here and 


eS ee 


INTRODUCTION. 173 


there a line or two, that are not in the quartos. These, also, are 
duly noted as they occur.’ On the whole, the quartos give the 
play considerably longer than the folio; the latter having been 
most likely printed from a play-house copy, which bad heen short- 
ened, in some cases not very judiciously, for the greater conve- 
nience of representation. 

From the words, “ enlarged to almost as much again as it was,” 
in the title-page of 1604, it was for a long time conjectured that 
the play had been printed before. At length, in 1825, a single 
copy of an earlier edition was discovered, and the text accurately 
reprinted, with the following title-page : «'The Tragical History 
of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark: By William Shakespeare. As 
it hath been divers times acted by his Highness Servants, in the 
city of London ; as also in the two Universities of Cambridge and 
Oxford, and elsewhere. At London: Printed for N. L. and John 
Trandell. 1603.” There is no doubt that this edition was pis. 
ratical ; it gives the play but about half as long as the later quar- 
tos; and carries in its face abundant evidence of having been 
greatly marred and disfigured in the making-up. 

As to the methods used in getting up the edition of 1603, a eare- 
ful examination of the text has satisfied us that they were much 
the same as appear to have been made use of in the quarto issues 
of King Henry V., and The Merry Wives of Windsor; of which 
some account is given in our Introductions to those plays. From 
divers minute particulars which cannot be specified without over- 
much of detail, it seems very evident that the printing was done, 
for the most part, from rude reports taken at the theatre daring 
representation, with, perbaps.some subsequent eking out and patch- 
ing up from memory. There are indeed a few passages that seem 
to be given with mach purity and completeness ; they bave an in- 
tegrity of sense and Janguage. that argues a faithful transcript ; 
as, for instance, the speech of Voltimand in Aet ii. se. 2, which 
searcely differs at all from the speech as we have it: but there is 
barely enough of this to serve as an exception to the rule. As to 
the other parts, the garbled and dislocated state of the text, where 
we often have the first of a sentence without the last, or the last 
without the first, or the first and Jast without the middle ; the con- 
stant lameness of the verse where verse was meant, and the bun- 
gling attempts to print prose so as to look like verse ;— all this 
proves beyond question, that the quarto of 1603 was by no means 
a faithful transcript of the play as it then stood; and the imper- 
fectness is of just that kind and degree which would naturally ad- 
here to the work of a slovenly or incompetent reporter. 

On the other band, it is equally clear, that at the time that copy 
was taken the play must have been very @fereut from what it 
afierwards became. Polonius is there called Corambis, and his 
servant, Montano. Divers scenes and passages,’ some of them 
such as a reporter would have been least likely to omit, are there 


15* 


174 HAMLET, PRINCE OF DENMARK. 


wanting altogether. The Queen is there represented as concert- 
ing and actively co-operating with Hamlet against the King’s life; 
and she has an interview of considerable length with Horatio, who 
informs her of Hamlet’s escape from the ship bound for England, 
and of-his safe arrival in Denmark ; of which scene the later issues 
have no traces whatsoever. All this fully ascertains that the play 
must have undergone a thorough revisal after the making up of 
the copy from which the first quarto was printed. But, what is 
not a little remarkable, some of the passages met with in the folio, 
but not in the enlarged quartos, are found in the quarto of 1603 ; 
which shows that they were omitted in the later quartos, and not 
added afterwards. 

With such and so many copies before us, it may well be asked, 
where the true text of Hamlet is to be found. The quarto of 
1603, though furnishing valuable aid in divers cases, is not of any 
real authority: this is clear enough from what has already been 
said about it. On the other hand, it can hardly be questioned that 
the issue of 1604 was as authentic and as well authorised, as any 
that were made of Shakespeare’s plays while he was living. We 
therefore take this as our main standard of the text, retaining, 
however, all the additional passages found in the folio of 1623. 
Moreover, the folio has many important changes and corrections 
which no reasonable editor would make any question of adopting. 
Mr. Knight indeed, who, after the true style of Knight-errantry, 
everywhere gives himself up to an almost unreserved champion- 
ship of the folio, takes that as the supreme authority. But in this 
case, as usual, his zeal betrays him into something of unfairness : 
for wherever he prefers a folio reading, (and some of his prefer- 
ences are odd enough,) he carefully notes it; but in divers cases, 
where. the quarto readings are so clearly preferable that he dare 
not reject them, we have caught him adopting them without mak- 
ing any note of them. ‘Taking the quarto of 1604 as our stand- 
ard, whenever we adopt any variation of much importance from 
this, it will be found specified in our notes. And in many other 
cases, where the folio readings can plead any fair title to prefer 
ence, we give them in the margin, though not ourselves preferring 
them; so that the reader can exercise his own choice in the 
matter. 

The next question to be considered is, at what time was the 
tragedy of Hamlet originally written? On this point we find it 
extremely difficult to form a clear judgment. Thus mach, how- 
ever, is quite certain, that either this play was one of the Poet’s 
very earliest productions, or else there was another play on the 
same subject. This certainty rests on a passage in an Epistle by 
Thomas Nash, prefixed to Greene’s Arcadia: “It is a common 
practice now-a-days, among a sort of shifting companions that 
ran through every art and thrive by none, to leave the trade of 
Noverint whereto they were born, and busy themselves with the 


INTRODUCTION. 175 


endeavours of art, that could scarcely latinise their neck-verse, if 
they should have need ; yet English Seneca, read by candle-light, 
yields many good sentences, as ‘ Blood is a beggar,’ and so forth; 
and, if you entreat him fair in a frosty morning, be will afford you 
whole Hamlets, I should say handfuls, of tragical speeches.” 
The words, “trade of Noverint,’”’ show that this squib was pointed 
at some writer of Hamlet, who had been known as an apprentice 
in the law ; and Shakespeare’s remarkable fondness for legal terms 
and allusions naturally suggests him as the person referred to, On 
the other hand, Nash’s Epistle was written certainly as early as 
1589, probably two years earlier, though this has been disputed. 
In 1589 Shakespeare was in his twenty-sixth year, and his name 


_ stood the twelfth in a list of sixteen, as a sharer in the Blackfriars 


play-house. The chief difficulty lies in believing that be could 
have been known so early as the author of a tragedy having Ham- 
Jet for its hero; but this difficulty is much reduced by the cireum- 
stance, that we have no knowledge how often or how much he may 
have improved a piece of that kind even before the copy of 1603 
Was made up. 

Again: It appears from Henslowe’s accounts that a play of 
Hamlet was performed in the theatre at Newington Butts on the 
9th of June, 1594. At this time, “my lord admirell men and my 
lord chamberlen men” were playing together at that theatre ; the 
Jatter of whom was the company to which Shakespeare belonged. 
At the performance of Hamlet, Henslowe sets down nine shillings 
as his share of the receipts; whereas in case of new plays he 
commonly received a much larger sum. Besides, the item in 
question is without the mark which the manager usually prefixed 
in case of a new play; so that we may conclude the Hamlet of 
1594. had at that time lost the feature of novelty. The question 
is, whether the Hamlet thus performed was Shakespeare’s ? That 
it was so, might naturally be inferred from the fact that the Lord 
Chamberlain’s men were then playing there ; besides, it has at 
least some probability, in that on the 11th of the same month 
Henslowe notes “The Taming of a Shrew” as having been per- 
formed at the same place. Whether this latter were Shake- 
speare’s play, has been sufficiently considered in our Introduction 
to The Taming of the Shrew. 

The next particular, bearing upon the subject, is from a tract 
by Thomas Lodge, printed in 1596, and entitled “ Wit’s Misery, 
or The World’s Madness, discovering the incarnate Devils of the 
Age ;”’ where one of the devils is said to be “a foul lubber, and 
looks as pale as the vizard of the Ghost, who cried so miserably 
at the theatre, Hamlet, revenge.” All these three notices are re- 
garded by Malone and some others as referring to another play 
of Hamlet, which they suppose to have been written by Thomas 
Kyd; though their only reason for thinking there was such an- 
other play, is the alleged improbability of the Poet’s having so 
early written on that subject. 


176 HAMLET, PRINCE OF DENMARK. 


It is to be observed, further, that a copy of Speight’s Chaucer 
once owned by Gabriel Harvey, and having his name written in 
it, together with the date of 1598, has, amoug others, the follow- 
ing manuseript note: “The younger sort take much delight in 
Shakespeare’s Venus and Adonis; but his Lucrece, and his trage- 
dy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, have it in them to please the 
wiser sort.” ‘This, however,dloes not seem to infer any thing with 
certainty as to time; since the name and date may have been 
written when Harvey purchased the book, and the note at some 
Jater period. 

The only other contemporary notice to be quoted of the play, 
is an entry at the Stationers’ by James Roberts, on the 26th of 
July, 1602: « A Book, — The Revenge of Hamlet, Prince of Den- 
mark, as it was lately acted by the Lord Chamberlain his Ser- 
vants.” As the quarto of 1604 was printed by James Roberts, 
we may reasonably conclude that this entry refers to the «en- 
Jarged”’ form of the play. Why the publication was not made 
till two years later, is beyond our reach: perhaps it was because 
no copy could be obtained for the press, until the maimed and 
‘stolen issue of 1603 had rendered it necessary to put forth an 
edition in self-defence, “ according to the true and perfect copy.” 
We have repeatedly seen that in the spring of 1603 «the Lord 
Chamberlain’s Servants” became ‘His Majesty’s Servants ;” 
or, as they are called in the title-page of 1603, « His Highness’ 
Servants.” 

A piece of internal. evidence fixes the date of the enlarged 
Hamlet soon after the 22d of June, 1600. It is the reason as- 
signed by Rosencrantz, in Act ii, sc. 2, why the players have left 
the city and gone to travelling : “J think their inhibition comes by 
means of the late innovation.’””?’ What this « inhibition’? was, has 
been set forth in our Introduction to Twelfth Night; so that it 
need not be repeated here. The passage just quoted is not in the 
copy of 1603: a different reason is there assigned why the players 
travel: « Novelty carries it away; for the principal public audi- 
ence that came to them are turned to private plays, and the humour 
of children.” 

Plays were acted in private by the choir-boys of the Chapel 
Royal and of St. Paul’s before 1590, several of Lyly’s pieces be- 
ing used in that way. It appears that in 1591 these juvenile per- 
formances had been suppressed ; as in the printer’s address pre- 
fixed to Lyly’s Endymion, which was published that year, we are 
told that, «since the plays in Paul’s were dissolved, there are cer- 
tain comedies come to my hand.’ Nash, in his « Have with You 
to Saffron Waldon,” published in 1596, expresses a wish to see 
the “plays at Paul’s up again ;” which infers that at that time 
the interdict was still in force. In 1600, however, we find that the 
- interdict had been taken off, a play attributed to Lyly being that 
year “acted by the children of Paul’s.” From this time forward 


these juvenile performances appear to have been kept up, both in 
private and in public, until 1612, when, on account of the abuses 
attending them, they were again suppressed. 

It would seem, then, that the reason assigned in the text of 1603 
refers to a period when the acting of children was only in private, 
and was regarded as a novelty ; whereas at the time of the later 
text the qualities of novelty and privacy had been removed. And 
it appears not improbable, that the taking-off of the interdict be- 
fore 1600, and the consequent revival of plays by children, was 
“the late innovation” by means of which the “inhibition” bad 
been brought about. Howbeit, so far as regards the date of the 
older text, the argument is by no means conclusive, and we are 
not for laying any very marked stress upon it; but it seems, at 
all events, worth considering. Its bearing as to the time of the 
Jater text is obvious enough, and will hardly be questioneds 

Knight justly remarks, that the mention of Termagant and 
Herod, which occurs in the quarto of 1603, refers to a time when 
those personages trod the Stage in pageants and mysteries ; and 
that the directions to the players, as given in the older text, point 
to the customs and conduct of the stage, as it was before Shake- 
speare had, by his example and influence, raised and reformed it. 
The following passage from the first copy will show what we 
mean: “And then you have some again, that keeps one suit of 
jests, as a man is known by one suit of apparel ; and gentlemen 
quote his jests down in their tables before they come to the play, 
as thus: ‘Cannot you stay till I eat my porridge ?’ and, « You 
owe me a quarter’s wages ;’ and, «My coat wants a cullison ;’ 
and, « Your beer is sour ;’ and, blabbering with his lips, and thus 
keeping in his cinque-a-pace of jests, when, God knows, the warm 
clown cannot make a jest unless by chance, as the blind man 
catcheth a hare.” From the absence of all this in the enlarged 
copy, we should naturally conclude that the evil referred to had at 
that time been done away, or at least much diminished, And in- 
deed a comparison of the two texts in this part of the play will 
satisfy any one, we think, that, daring the interval between them, 
the stage had been greatly elevated and improved : divers bad 
customs, no doubt, had been «reformed indifferently ;”” so that 
the point still remaining was, to “reform them altogether.” 

As to the general character of the additions in. the enlarged 
Hamlet, it is to be noted that these are mostly in the coutempla- 
tive and imaginative parts ; very little being added in the way of 
action and incident. And in respect of the former there is indeed 
no comparison between the two copies: thé difference is literally 
immense, and of such a kind as evinces a most astonishing growth 
of intellectual power and resource. In the earlier text, we have 
little more than a naked, though, in the main, well-ordered and 
firm-knit skeleton, which, in the later, is everywhere replenished 
and glorified with large, rich volumes of thought and poetry ; 


—_— yy a yy ~~. z boda eS sab one” 
Fe eT ee Tee! em 


INTRODUCTION. [PR 


178 HAMLET, PRINCE OF DENMARK. 


where all that is incidental or circumstantial is made subordinate 
to the living energies of mind and soul. The difference is like 
that of a lusty grove of hickory or maple brethren in December 
with the winds whistling through them, and in June with the birds 
singing in them. 

So that the enlarged Hamlet probably marks the germination 
of that “thoughtful philosophy,” as Hallam ealls it, which never 
afterwards deserted the Poet; though time did indeed abate its 
excess, and reduce it under his control ; whereas it here overflows 
all bounds, and sweeps onward uncheeked, so as to form the very 
character of the piece. Moreover, this play, in common with 
several others, though in a greater degree, bears symptoms of a 
mach saddened and aggrieved, not to say embittered temper of 
mind: it is fraught, more than any other, with a spirit of profound 
and melancholy cogitation ; as if written under the influence of 
some stroke that had shaken the Poet’s disposition with thoaghts 
beyond the reaches of his soul; or as if he were casting about in 
the darker and sterner regions of meditation in quest of an anti- 
dote for some deep distress that had touched him. For there can 
be little doubt, that the birth and first stages of “ the philosophic 
mind” were in his case, for some cause unknown to us, hung 
about with clouds and gloom, which, however, were afterwards 
blown off, and replaced by an atmosphere of unblemished clear- 
ness and serenity. Hallam has remarked upon this introversive 
and darkly-brooding season of the Poet’s mind, in a superb strain 
of criticism, which has been quoted in our Introduction to Meas- 
ure for Measure. 

From all which may be gathered how appropriately this play 
has been described as a tragedy of thought. Such is indeed its 
character. And in this character it stands alone, and that, not 
only of Shakespeare’s dramas, but of all the dramas in being. As 
for action, the play has little that can be properly so called. The 
scenes are indeed richly diversified with incident; but the inci- 
dents, for the most part, engage our attention only as serving to 
start and shape the hero’s far-reaching trains of reflection ; them- 
selves being Jost sight of in the wealth of thought and sentiment 
which they call forth. In no other of Shakespeare’s plays does 
ihe interest turn so entirely on the hero; and that, not because he 
overrides the other persons and crushes their individuality under; 
as Richard II. does ; but because his life is all centered in the 
mind, and the effluence of his mind and character is around all the 
others and within them; so that they are little interesting to us, 
but for his sake, for the effects they have upon him, and the thoughts 
he has of them. Observe, too, that of all dramatic personages, 
«out of sight, out of mind,” can least be said of him: on the 
contrary, be is never more in mind, than when out of sight; and 
whenever others come in sight, the effect still is, to remind us of 
him, and deepen our interest in him. 


>a” 


ee a ee ae 
‘ 


INTRODUCTION. 179 


The character of Hamlet has caused more of perplexity and 
discussion -than any other in the whole range of art. He has a 
wonderful interest for all, yet none can explain him ; and perhaps 
he is therefore the more interesting because inexplicable. We 
have found by experience, that one seems to understand him bet- 
ter after a little study than after a great deal. and that the Jess 
one sees info him, the more apt one is to think he sees through 
him 5 in which respect he is indeed like nature herself. We shall 
not presume to make clear what so many better eyes have found 
and left dark. The most we can hope to do is, to start a few 
thoughts, not towards explaining him, but towards showing why 
he cannot be explained; nor to reduce the variety of opinions 
touching him, but rather to suggest whence that variety proceeds, 
and why. 

One man considers Hamlet great, but wicked 3 another, good, 
but weak ; a third, that he lacks courage, and dare not act; a 
fourth, that he has too much intellect for his will. and so thinks 
away the time of action: some conclude him honestly mad ; others, 
that his madness is wholly feigned. Yet, notwithstanding this di- 
versity of conclusions, all agree in thinking and speaking of him 
as an actual person. It is easy to invest with plausibility almost 
any theory regarding him, but very hard to make any theory com- 
prebend the whole subject ; and, while all are impressed with the 
trath of the character, no one is satisfied with another’s view of it. 
The question is, why such unanimity as to his being a man, and 
at the same time such diversity as to what sort of a man he is? 

Now, in reasoning about facts, we are apt to forget what com- 
plex and many-sided things they are. We often speak of them 
as very simple and intelligible; and in some respects they are so ; 
but, in others, they are inscrutably mysterious. For they present 
manifold elements and qualities in unity and consistency, and so 
carry a manifoldness of meaning which cannot be gathered up 
into logical expression. Even if we seize and draw out severally 
all the properties of a fact, still we are as far as ever from pro- 
ducing the effect of their combination. ‘Thus there is somewhat 
in facts that still eludes the cunningest analysis; like the vital 
principle, which no subtlety of dissection can grasp or overtake. 
It is this mysteriousness of facts that begets our respect for them: 
could we master them, we should naturally lose our regard for 
them. For, to see round and through a thing, implies a sort of 
conquest over it; and when we seem to have conquered a thing, 
we are apt to put off that humility towards it, which is both the 
better part of wisdom, and also our key to the remainder. 

This complexity of facts supposes the material of innumerable 
theories : for, in such a multitude of properties belonging to one 
and the same thing, every man’s mind may take hold of some 
special consideration above the rest ; and when we look at facts 
through a given theory they naturally seem to prove but that one, 


180 HAMLET, PRINCE OF DENMARK. 


though they would really afford equal proof of fifty others. Hence 
there come to be divers opinions respecting the same thing ; and 
men arrive at opposite conclusions, forgetting, that of a given fact 
many things may be true in their place and degree, yet none of 
them true in such sort as to impair the truth of others. 

Now, Hamlet is all varieties of character in one; be is cons 
tinvally turning ap a new side, appearing under a new phase, un- 
dergoing some new development; so that he touches us at all 
points, and, as it were, surrounds us. This complexity and ver- 
satility of character are ofien mistaken for inconsistency : hence 
the contradictory opinions respecting him, different minds taking 
very different impressions of him, and even the same mind, at 
different times. In short, like other facts, he is many-sided, so 
that many men of many minds may see themselves in different 
sides of him; but, when they compare notes, and find him agree- 
ing with them all, they are perplexed, and are apt to think him 
inconsistent,: in so great a diversity of elements, they lose the per- 
ception of identity, and cannot see how he can be so many, and 
still be but one. Doubtless he seems the more real for this very 
eause; our inability to see through him, or to discern the source 
and manner of his impression upon us, brings bim closer to nature, 
makes him appear the more like a fact, and so strengthens his 
bold on our thoughts. For, where there is life, there must needs 
be more or less of change, the very law of life being identity in 
mutability ; and in Hamlet the variety and rapidity of changes 
are so managed as only to infer the more intense, active, and pro- 
lific vitality ; though, in so great a multitude of changes, it is ex- 
tremely difficult to seize the constant principle. 

Coleridge’s view of Hamlet is much celebrated, and the cur- 
rency it has attained shows there must be something’ of truth in it. 
«In the healthy processes of the mind,” says he, “a balance is 
constantly maintained between the impressions from outward ob- 
jects and the inward operations of the intellect: for, if there be 
an overbalance in the contemplative faculty, man thereby becomes 
the creature of mere meditation, and loses his natural power of 
action. Now, one of Shakespeare’s modes of creating characters 
is, to conceive any one intellectual or moral faculty in morbid ex- 
ecss, and then to place himself, Shakespeare, thas mutilated or 
diseased, under given circumstances. In Hamlet he seems to 
have wished to exemplify the moral necessity of a due balance 
between our attention to the objects of our senses, and our med- 
itation on the workings of our minds, — an equilibrium between 
the real and the imaginary worlds. In Hamlet this balance 1s 
disturbed: his thoughts and the images of his fancy are far more 
vivid than his actual perceptions ; and his very perceptions, in- 
stantly passing through the medium of his contemplations, acquire, 
as they pass, a form and colour not naturally their own. Hence 
we see a great, an almost enormous, intellectual activity, and a 


INTRODUCTION. Isl 


proportionate aversion to real action, consequent upon it, with al] 
its symptoms and accompanying qualities. This character Shake- 
Speare places in circumstances, under which it is obliged to act on 
the spur of the moment :— Hamlet is brave and careless of death ; 
but he vacillates from sensibility, and procrastinates from thought 
and loses the power of action in the energy of resolve. 

“The effect of this overbalance of the imaginative power is 
beautifully illustrated in the everlasting broodings and superfluous 
activities of Hamlet’s mind, which, unseated from its healthy re- 
lation, is constantly occupied with the world within, and abstracted 
from the world without ; giving substance to shadows, and throw- 
ing a mist over all common-place actualities. It is the nature of 


? 


, thought to be indefinite ;— definitencss belongs to external imagery 


alone. Hence it is that the sense of sublimity arises, not from the 
sight of an outward object, but from the beholder’s reflection upon 
it; not from the sensuous impression, but from the imaginative re- 
flex. Few have seen a celebrated waterfall without feeling some- 
thing akin to disappointment: it is only subsequently that the im- 
age comes back full into the mind, and brings with it a train of 
grand or beautiful associations. Hamlet feels this ; his senses are 
in a trance, and he looks upon external things as hieroglyphics.” 

This is certainly very noble criticism 3 and our main ground of 
doubt as to the view thus given is, that Hamlet seems bold, en- 
ergetic, and prompt enough in action, when his course is free of 
moral impediments ; as, for instance, in his conduct on shipboard, 
touching the commission, where his powers of thought all range 
themselves under the leading of a most vigorous and steady will. 
Our own belief is, though we are far from absolute in it, that the 
Poet’s design was, to conceive a man great, perhaps equally so, 
in all the elements of character, mental, moral, and practical; and 
then to place him in such circumstances, bring such motives to bear 
upon him, and open to him such sources of influence and reflec- 
tion, that all his greatness should be morally forced to display it- 
self in the form of thought, even his strength of will having no 
practicable outlet but through the energies of the intellect. A 
brief review of the delineation will, if we mistake not, disccr er 
some reason for this belief. : 

Up to the time of his father’s death, Hamlet’s mind, busied in 
developing its innate riches, had found room for no sentiments to- 
wards others but generous trust and confidence. Delighted with 
the appearances of good, and shielded by his rank from the naked 
approaches of evil, he had no motive to pry through the semblance 
into the reality of surrounding characters. ‘\’The ideas of princely 
elevation and moral rectitude, springing up simultaneously in bis 
mind, had intertwisted their fibres closely together. While the 
chaste forms of young imagination had kept his own heart pure, 
he had framed his conceptions of others according to the model 
within himself. To the feelings of the son, the prince, the gentle- 


VOL. xX. 16 


182 HAMLET, PRINCE OF DENMARK. 


man, the friend. the scholar, had lately been joined those of the 
lover ; and his heart, oppressed with its own hopes and joys, had 
breathed forth its fulness in “almost all the holy vows of heaven.” 
In his father he had realized the ideal of character which he as- 
pired to exemplify. Whatsoever noble images and ideas he had 
githered from the fields of poetry and philosophy, he had learned 
to associate with that venerated name. To the throne he looked 
forward with hope and fear, as an elevation for diffusing the bless- 
ings of a wise sovereignty, and receiving the homage of a grateful 
submission. As the crown was elective, he regarded his prospects 
of attaining it as suspended on the continuance of his father’s life, 
till he could discover in himself such virtues as would secure him 
the succession. In his father’s death, therefore, he lost the main 
stay of both his affections and his pretensions. 

Notwithstanding, the foundatious of his peace and happiness 
were yet unshaken. The prospects of the man were perhaps all 
the brighter, that those of the prince had faded. he fireside and 
the student’s bower were still open to him; trath and beauty, 
thought and affection, bad not hidden their faces from him: with a 
mind saddened, but not diseased, his bereavement served to deepen 
and chasten his sensibilities, without untuning their music. Cun- 
ning and quick of jheart to discover and appropriate the remuner- 
ations of life, he could compensate the loss of some objects with 
a more free and tranquil enjoyment of such as remained. In the 
absence of his father, he could concentrate upon his mother the 
feelings hitherto shared between them ; and, in cases like this, 
religion towards the dead comes in to heighten and sanctify an 
affection for the living. Even if his mother too had died, the loss, 
however bitter, would not have been baleful to him ; for, though 
separated from the chief objects of love and trust and reverence, 
he would still have retained those sentiments themselves unim- 
paired. It is not his mother, however, but his faith in her, that he 
has to part with. T'o his prophetic soul, the hasty and incestuous 
marriage brings at once conviction of his mother’s infidelity, and 
suspicion of his uncle’s treachery, to his father. Where he has 
most loved and trusted, there he has been most deceived. The 
sadness of bereavement now settles into the deep gloom of a 
wounded spirit, and life seems rather a burden to be borne than a 
blessing to.be cherished. In this condition, the appearance of the 
Ghost, its awful disclosures, and more awful injunctions, confirm- 
ing the suspicion of his uncle’s treachery, and implicating his 
mother in the crime, complete his desolation of mind. 

Nevertheless, he still retains all his integrity and uprightness of 
soul. In the depths of his being, even below the reach of con- 
sciousness, there lives the instinct and impulse of a moral law with 
which the injunction of the Ghost stands in direct conflict. What 
is the quality of the act required of him? Nothing less, indeed, 
than to kill at once his uncle, his mother’s husband, and his king 5 


INTRODUCTION. 183 


and this, not as an act of justice, and in a judicial manner, but as 
an act of revenge, and by assassination! How shall he justify 
such a deed to the world? How vindicate himself from the very 
crime thus revenged? For, as he cannot subpeena the Ghost, the 
evidence on which he must act is in its nature available only in 
the court of his own conscience. To serve any good end either 
for hiiuself or for others, the deed must so stand in the publie eye, 
as it does_in his own ; else he will, in effect, be setting an example 
and precedent of murder, not of justice. 

Thus Hamlet’s conscience is divided, not merely against his 
inclination, but against itself. However he multiplies to himself 
reasons and motives for the deed, there yet springs up, from a 
depth in his nature which reflection has not fathomed, an over- 
ruling impulse against it. So that we have the triumph of a pure 
moral nature over temptation in its most imposing form, — the 
form of a sacred call from heaven, or what is such to him. He 
thinks he ought to do the thing, resolves that he will do it, blames 
himself for not doing it; but there is a power within him which 
still outwrestles his purpose. In brief, the trouble lies not in bim- 
self, but in his situation; it arises from the impossibility of trans- 
lating the outward call of duty into a free moral impulse 3 and 
until so translated he cannot perform it; for in such an undertak- 
ing he must act from himself. not from another. 

This strife of incompatible duties seems the trae source of 
Hamlet’s practical indecision. His moral sensitiveness, shrinking 
from the dreadful mandate of revenge, throws him back upon his 
reflective powers, aud sends him through the abysses of thought 
in quest of a reconciliation between his conflicting duties, that so 
he may shelter either the performance of the deed from the re- 
proach of irreligion, or the non-performance from that of filial 
impiety. Moreover, on reflection he discerns something in the 
mandate that makes him question its source: even his filial rev- 
erence leads him first to regret, then to doubt, and finally to dis- 
believe, that his futher has laid on him such an injunction. It 
seems more likely that the Ghost should he a counterfeit, than 
that his father should call him to such a deed. Thus his mind is 
set in quest of other proofs. But when, by the stratagem of the 
play, he has made the King’s guilt unkennel itself, this demon- 
stration again arrests his hand, because his own conscience is 
startled into motion by the revelations made from that of another. 
Seeking grounds of action in the workings of remorse, the very 
proofs, which to his mind would justify the inflicting of death, 
themselves spring from something worse than death. 

And it should be remarked, withal, that by the very process of 
the case he is put in immediate contact with supernatural in- 
fluences. The same voice that calls him to the undertaking also 
unfolds to him the retributions of faturity. The thought of that 
eternal blazon, which must not be to ears of flesh and blood, 


184 HAMLET, PRINCE OF DENMARK. 


entrances him in meditation on the awful realities of the invisible 
world ; so that, while nerved by a sense of the duty, he is at the 
same time shaken by a dread of the responsibility. Thus the Ghost 
works in Hamlet a sort of preternatural development : its disclo- 
sures: bring forth into clear apprehension some moral ideas which 
before were but dim presentiments in him. It is as if be were 
born into the other world before dying out of this. And what is 
thus developed in him is at strife with the injunction laid upon bim. 

Thus it appears, that Hamlet is distracted with a purp6se which 
he is at once too good a son to dismiss, and too good a man to 
perform. Under an injunction with which he knows not what to 
do, he casts about, now for excuses, now for censures, of his non- 
performance; and religion still prevents him from doing what filial 
piety reproves him for Jeaving undone. Not daring to abandon 
the design of killing the King, he is yet morally incapable of form- 
ing any plan for doing it: he can only go through the work, as 
indeed he does at last, under a sudden frenzy of excitement, caused 
by some immediate provocation; not so much acting, as being 
acted upon; rather as an instrument of Providence, than as a self- 
determining agent. 

Properly speaking, then, Hamlet, we think, does not lack force 
of will. In him, will is strictly subject to reason and conscience 5 
and it rather shows strength than otherwise in refusing to move in 
conflict with them. We are apt to measure men’s force of will 
only by what they do, whereas the true measure thereof often lies 
rather in what they do not do. On this point, Mr. E. P. Whipple 
suggests, that “will is a relative term ; and, even admitting that 
Hamlet possessed more will than many who act with decision, the 
fact that his other powers were larger in proportion justifies the 
common belief, that he was deficient in energy of purpose.” But 
this, it strikes us, does not exactly meet the position ; which is, 
that force of will is shown rather in holding still, than in moving, 
where the moral understanding is not satisfied ; and that Hamlet 
seems to lack rather the power of seeing what he ought to do, than 
of doing what he sees to be right. The question is, whether they 
peculiarity of this representation is not meant to consist in the hero 
being so placed, that strength of will has its proper outcome rather 
in thinking than in acting; the working of his whole mind being 
thus rendered as anomalous as his situation; which is just what 
the subject requires. Will it be said, that Hamlet’s moral scruples 
are born of an innate reluctance to act? that from defect of will 
he wishes to hold back, and so hunts after motives for doing so? 
We should ourselves be much inclined to say so, but that those 
scruples seem to be the native and legitimate offspring of reason 
There being, as we think, sufficient grounds for them out of him 
we cannot refer them to any infirmity of his as their source. 

It is true, Hamlet takes to himself all the blame of his indi 
cision. This, we think, is one of the finest points in the delinea 


Pe: 


INTRODUCTION. 185 


tion. For true virtue does not publish itself: radiating from the 
heart through the functions of life, its transpirations are so free and 
smooth and deep as to be scarce heard even by the subject of 
them. Moreover, in his conflict of duties, Hamlet naturally thinks 
he is taking the wrong one ; the calls of the claim he meets being 
hushed by satisfaction, while those of the other are increased by 
disappointment. The current that we go with is naturally un- 
noticed by us ; but that which we go against compels our notice 
by the struggle it puts us to. In this way Hamlet comes to mis- 
take his clearness of conscience for moral insensibility. For even 
so a good man is apt to think he has not consience enough, be 
cause it is quiet; a bad man, that he has too much, because it 
troubles him; which accounts for the readiness of bad men to sup 
ply their neighbours with conscience. 

But perhaps the greatest perplexity of all in Hamlet’s charac- 
ter turns on the point of his “antie disposition.”” Whether his 
madness be real or feigned, or sometimes the one, sometimes the 
other, or partly real, partly feigned, are questions which, like many 
that arise on similar points in actual life, perhaps can never be 
finally settled either way. Aside from the common impossibility 
of deciding precisely where sanity ends and insanity begins, there 
are peculiarities in Hamlet’s conduct,— resulting from the min- 
glings of the supernatural in his situation, — which, as they tran- 
scend the reach of our ordinary experience, can hardly be reduced 
to any thing more than probable conjecture. If sanity consists in 
a certain harmony between a man’s actions and his circumstances, 
it must be hard indeed to say what would be insanity in a man so 
circumstanced as Hamlet. 

That his mind is thrown from its propriety, shaken from its due 
forms and measures of working, excited into irregular, fevered ac- 
tion, is evident, enough: from the deeply-agitating experiences he 
has undergone, the horrors of guilt preternaturally laid open to 
him, and the terrible ministry enjoined upon him, he could not be 
otherwise. His mind is indeed full of unbealthy perturbation, 
being necessarily made so by the overwhelming thoughts that press 
upon him from without ; but it nowhere appears enthralled by il- 
lusions spun from itself; there are no symptoms of its being torn 
from its proper holdings, or paralyzed in its power of steady 
thought and coherent reasoning. Once only, at the grave of 
Ophelia, does he lose his self-possession; and the result in this 
case only goes to prove bow firmly he retains it everywhere else. 

It is matter of common observation, that extreme emotions nat- 
urally express themselves by their opposites ; as extreme sorrow, 
in laughter, extreme joy, in tears; utter despair, in a voice of 
mirth; a wounded spirit, in gushes of humour. Hence Shake- 
speare heightens the effect of some of his awfulest scenes by mak- 
ing the persons indulge. in flashes of merriment ; for what so ap- 
palling as to see a person laughing and playing from excess of 


16* 


186 HAMLET, PRINCE OF DENMARK. 


anguish or terror? Now, the expressions of mirth, in such cases 
are plainly neither the reality nor the affectation of mirth. Peo 
ple, when overwhelmed with distress, certainly are not in a con- 
dition either to feel merry or to feign mirth; yet they do some- 
times express it. The truth is, such extremes naturally and spon- 
taneously express themselves by their opposites. In like manner, 
Hamlet’s madness, it seems to us, is neither real nor affected, but 
a sort of natural and spontaneous imitation of madness ; the tri- 
umph of his reason over his passion naturally expressing itself in 
the tokens of insanity, just as the agonies of despair naturally 
vent themselves in flashes of mirth. Accordingly, Coleridge re- 
marks, that “ Hamlet’s wildness is but half false; be plays that 
subtle trick of pretending to act, only when he is very near really 
being what he acts.” 

Again: It is not uncommon for men, in times of great depres- 
sion, to fly off into prodigious humours and eccentricities. We 
have known people under such extreme pressure to throw their 
most intimate friends into consternation by their extravagant play- 
ings and frolickings. Such symptoms of wildness are sometimes 
the natural, though perhaps spasmodic, reaction of the mind 
against the weight that oppresses it. The mind thus spontaneous- 
ly becomes eccentric in order to recover or preserve its centre. 
Even so Hamlet’s aberrations seem the conscious, half-voluntary 
bending of his faculties beneath an overload of thought,*to keep 
them from breaking. His mind being deeply disturbed, agitated 
to its centre, but not disorganized, those irregularities are rather a 
throwing-off of that disturbance than a giving-way to it. 

On the whole, therefore, Goethe’s celebrated criticism seems 
quite beside the mark: nevertheless, as it is the calm judgment 
of a great mind, besides being almost too beautiful in itself not 
to be true, we gladly subjoin it. «It is clear to me,” says he, 
«that Shakespeare’s intention was, to exhibit the effects of a great 
action imposed as a duty upon a mind too feeble for its accom- 
plishment. In this sense I find the character consistent through 
out. Here is an oak planted in a china vase, proper to receive 
only the most delicate flowers : the roots strike out, and the ves- 
sel flies to pieces, A pure, noble, highly moral disposition, but 
without that energy of soul which constitutes the hero, sinks under 
a load which it can neither support nor resolve to abandon alto- 
gether: Adi his obligations are sacred to him; but this alone is 
above his powers. An impossibility is required at bis hands; not 
an impossibility in itself, but that which is so to him,” 

Still we have. to confess, as stated before, that there is a mys- 
tery about Hamlet, which baffles all our resources of criticism 5 
and our remarks should be taken as expressing rather what we 
have thought on the subject than any settled judgment. We will 
dismiss the theme by quoting what seems to us a very admirable 
passage from a paper in Blackwood’s Magazine, vol. ii., signed 


: 
7 
: 
; 
1 


: INTRODUCTION. 187 


«“T. C.” The writer is speaking of Hamlet: “In him, his char- 
acter, and his situation, there is a concentration of all the interests 
that belong to humanity. There is scarcely a trait of frailty or 
of grandeur, which may have endeared to us our most beloved 
friends in real life, that is not found in Hamlet. Undoubtedly 
Shakespeare loved him beyond all his other creations. Soon as 
he appears on the stage, we are satisfied : when absent, we long 
for his return. This is the only play which exists almost alto- 
gether in the character of one single person. Who ever knew a 
Hamlet in real life? yet who, ideal as the character is, feels ‘not 
its reality? This is the wonder. We love him not, we think of 
him not, because he was witty, because he was melancholy, be- 
cause he was filial; but we love him because he existed, and was 
himself. This is the grand sum-total of the impression. I be- 
lieve that of every other character, either in tragic or epic poetry, 
the story makes a part of the conception ; but, of Hamlet, the 
deep and permanent interest is the conception of himself. This 
seems to belong, not to the character being more perfectly drawn, 
bat to there being a more intense conception of individual human 
life than perhaps in any other human composition 3 that is, abeing . 
with springs of thought, and feeling, and action, deeper than we 
can search. These springs rise up from an unknown depth, and 
in that depth there seems to be a oneness of being which we can- 
not distinctly behold, but which we believe to be there; and thus 
irreconcileable circumstances, floating on the surface of his actions, 
have not~the effect of making us doubt the truth of the general 
picture.” 

From the same eloquent paper we must make another extract 
touching the apparition of “that fair and warlike form, in which 
the majesty of buried Denmark did sometimes march:” « With 
all the mighty power which this tragedy possesses over us, arising 
from qualities now very generally described ; yet, without that 
kingly shadow, who throws over it such preternatural grandeur, it 
could never have gained so universal an ascendancy over the 
minds of men. Now, the reality of a ghost is measured to that 
stale of imagination in which we ought to be held for the fullest 
powers of tragedy. The appearance of such a phantom at once 
throws open those recesses of the inner spirit over which flesh was 
closing. Magicians, thunder-storms, and demons produce upon 
me something of the same effect. I feel myself brought instan- 
taneously back to the creed of childhood. Imagination then seems 
not a power which I exert, but an impulse which I obey. Thus 
does the Ghost in Hamlet carry us into the presence of eternity. 

“Never was a more majestic spirit more majestically revealed. 
The shadow of his kingly grandeur and his warlike might rests 
massily upon him. He passes before us sad, silent, and stately. 
He brings the whole weight of the tragedy in his disclosures. His 
speech is ghost-like, and blends with ghost conceptions. The 


2 au i . 
: ad t 


188 HAMLET, PRINCE OF DENMARK. 


popular memory of his words proves how profoundly they sink into 
our souls, The preparation for his first appearance is most sol- 
emn. The night-watch,—the more common effect on the two 
soldiers, — the deeper effect on the next party, and their specula 
tions, — Horatio’s communication with the shadow, that seems as it 
were half-way between theirs and Hamlet’s, — his adjurations, — 
the degree of impression which they produce on the Ghost’s mind, 
who is about to speak but for the due ghost-like interruption of the 
hird of morning ;—all these things lead our minds up to the last 
pitch of breathless expectation ; and while yet the whole weight 
of mystery is left hanging over the play, we fee] that some dread 
disclosure is reserved for Hamlet’s ear, and that an apparition 
from the world unknown is still a partaker of the noblest of all 
earthly affections.” 

Horatio is a very noble character ; but he moves so quietly in 
the drama, that his modest worth and solid manliness have not had 
justice done them. Should we undertake to go through the play 
without him, we should then feel how much of the best spirit and 
impression of the scenes is owing to his presence and character. 
- For he is the medium through which many of the hero’s finest and 
noblest traits are conveyed to us; yet himself so clear and trans- 
parent that he scarcely catches the attention. Mr. Verplanck, we 
believe, was the first to give him his due. “ While,” says he, 
«every other character in this play, Ophelia, Polonius, and even 
Osrick, has been analyzed and discussed, it is remarkable that no 
critic has stept forward to notice the great beauty of Horatio’s 
character, and its exquisite adaptation to the effect of the piece. 
His is a character of great excellence and accomplishment ; but 
while this is distinctly shown, it is but sketched, not elaborately 
painted. His qualities are brought out only by single and seem- 
ingly-accidental touches 3 the whole being toned down to a quiet 
and unobtrusive beauty that does not tempt the mind to wander 
from the main interest, which rests alone upon Hannlet 5 while it 
is yet distinct enough to increase that interest, by showing him 
worthy to be Hamlet’s trusted friend in life, and the chosen dew 
fender of his honour after death. Such a character, in the hands 
of another author, would have been made the centre of some sec- 
ondary plot. But here, while he commands our respect and es- 
teem, he never for a moment divides a passing interest with the 
Prince. He does not break in upon the main current of our feel- 
ings. He contributes only to the general effect; so that it re- 
quires an effort of the mind to separate him for critical admira- 
tion.” 

The main features of Polonius have been seized and set forth 
by Dr. Johnson with the band of a master. It is one of the best 
pieces of personal criticism ever penned. « Polonius,” says he, 
«is a man bred in courts, exercised in business, stored with obser- 
vation, confident in his knowledge, proud of his eloquence, and 


INTRODUCTION. 189 


declining into dotage. His mode of oratory is designed to rid- 
icule the practice of these times, of prefaces that made no intro- 
duction, and of method that embarrassed rather than explained. 
This part of his character is accidental, the rest natural. Such a 
man is positive and confident, because he knows that his mind was 
once strong, and knows not that it has become weak. Such aman 
excels in general principles, but fails in particular application. He 
is knowing in retrospect, and ignorant in foresight. While he de- 
pends upon his memory, and can draw from his depositaries of 
knowledge, he utters weighty sentences, and gives useful counsel ; 
but, as the mind in its enfeebled state cannot be kept long busy 
and intent, the old man is subject to the dereliction of his facul- 
ties ; he loses the order of his ideas, and entangles himself in his 
own thoughts, till he recover the leading principle, and fall into 
his former train. The idea of dotage encroaching upon wisdom 
will solve all the phenomena of the character of Polonius.” 

In all this Polonius is the exact antithesis of Hamlet, though 
Hamlet doubtless includes him, as the heavens do the earth. A 
man of but one method, that of intrigue 5 with his fingers ever 
itching to pull the wires of some intricate plot ; and without any 
sense or perception of times and occasions; he is called to act in 
a matter where such arts and methods are peculiarly unfitting, and 
therefore only succeeds in over-reaching himself. Thus in him we 
have the type of a superannuated politician, and all his follies and 
blunders spring from undertaking to act the politician where he is 
most especially required to be a man. From books, too, he has 
gleaned maxims, but not gained development; sought to equip, 
not feed, his mind out of them: he has therefore made books his 
idols, and books have made him pedantic. 

To such a mind, or rather half-mind, the character of Hamlet 
must needs bea profound enigma. It takes a whole man to know 
such a being as Hamlet; and Polonius is but the attic story of a 
man! As in his mind the calculative faculties have eaten out the 
perceptive, of course his inferences are seldom wrong, his prem- 
ises seldom right. Assuming Hamlet to be thus and so, he rea- 
sons and acts most admirably in regard to him; but the fact is, he 
cannot see Hamlet; has no eye for the true premises of the case ; 
and, being wrong in. these, his very correctness of logic makes 
him but the more ridiculous. His method of coming at the mean- 
ing of men, is by reading them backwards; and this method, 
used upon such a character as Hamlet, can but betray the user’s 
infirmity. 

Shakespeare’s skill in revealing a character through its most 
characteristic transpirations is finely displayed in the directions 
Polonius gives his servant, for detecting the habits and practices 
of his absent son. Here the old politician is perfectly at home ; 
his mind seems to revel in the mysteries of wire-pulling and trap- 
setting. In the Prince, however, he finds an impracticable sub« 


199 HAMLET, PRINCE OF DENMARK. 


ject; here all his strategy is nonplussed, and himself caught in the 
trap he sets to catch the truth. ‘Che mere torch of policy, nature, 
or Hamlet, who is an embodiment of nature, blows him out; so 
that, in attempting to throw light on the Prince, he just rays out 
nothing but smoke. ‘The sport of circumstances, it was only by 
a change of circumstances that Hamlet came to know him. Once 
the honoured minister of his royal father, now the despised tool of 
that father’s murderer, Hamlet sees in him only the crooked, sup- 
ple time-server ; and the ease with which he bafiles and plagues 
the old fox shows how much craftier one can be who scorns craft, 
than one who courts it. 

Habits of intrigue having extinguished in Polonius’ the powers 
of honest insight and special discernment, he therefore perceives 
not the unfitness of his old methods to the new exigency ; while at 
the same time his faith in the craft, hitherto found so successful, 
stuffs him with overweening assurance. Hence, also, that singular 
but most characteristic specimen of grannyism, namely, his pe- 
dantic and impertinent dallying with artful turns of thought and 
speech amidst serious business ; where he appears not unlike a 
certain person who “could speak no sense in several languages.” 
Superannuated politicians, indeed, like him, seldom have any 
strength but as they fall back upon the resources of memory: out 
of these, the ashes, so to speak, of extinct faculties, they may seem 
wise after the fountains of wisdom are dried up within them; as 
a man who has lost his sight may seem to distinguish colours, so 
long as he refrains from speaking of the colours that are before 
him. 

Of all Shakespeare’s heroines, the impression of Ophelia is 
perhaps the most difficult of analysis, partly because she is so real, 
partly because so undeveloped. Like Cordelia, she is brought 
forward but little in the play, yet the whole play seems fall of her. 
Her very silence utters her: unseen, she is missed, and so thought 
of the more: when absent in person, she is still present in effect, 
by what others bring from her. Whatsoever grace comes from 
Polonius and the Queen is of her inspiring: Laertes is scaree re- 
garded but as he loves his sister: of Hamlet’s soul, too, she is the 
sunrise and morning hymn. The soul of innocence and gentle- 
ness, wisdom seems to radiate from her insensibly, as fragrance is 
exhaled from flowers. It is in such forms that heaven most fre- 
quently visits us! 

Ophelia’s situation much resembles Imogen’s 5 their characters 
are in marked contrast. Both appear amid the corruptions of a 
wicked court ; Ophelia escapes them by insensibility of their pres- 
ence, Imogen, by determined resistance: The former is unassail- 
able in her innocence; the latter, unconquerable in her strength : 
Ignorance protects Ophelia, knowledge, Imogen: The conception 
of vice has scarce found its way into Ophelia’s mind ; in Imogen 
the daily perception of vice has but called for a power to repel it. 


INTRODUCTION. 91 


Tn Ophelia, again, as in Desdemona, the comparative want of in- 
telligence, or rather intellectuality, is never felt as a defect. She 
fills up the idea of excellence just as completely as if she had the 
intellect of Shakespeare himself. In the rounded equipoise of her 
character we miss not the absent element, because there is no va- 
cancy to he supplied; and high intellect would strike us rather as 
a superfluity than a supplement ; its voice would rather drown than 
complete the harmony of the other tones. 

Ophelia is exhibited in the utmost ripeness and mellowness, both 
of soul and sense, to impressions from without. With her sus- 
ceptibilities just opening to external objects, her thoughts are so 
engaged on these as to leave no room for self-contemplation. 
This exceeding impressibility is the source at once of her beauty 
and her danger. From the lips and eyes of Hamlet she has drunk 
in pledges of his love, but has never heard the voice of her own ; 
and knows not how full ber heart is of Hamlct, because sive has 
not a single thought or feeling there at strife with him. Mrs. Jame- 
son rightly says, “she is far more conscious of being loved than 
of loving ; and yet loving in the silent depths of her young heart 
far more than she is loved.”” For it is a singular fact that, thoneh 
from Hamlet we have many disclosures, and from Ophelia only 
concealments, there has been much doubt of his love, but never 
any of hers. Opbelia’s silence as to her own passion has been 
sometimes misderived from a wish to hide it from others 3 but, in 
truth, she seems not to be aware of it herself; and she uneon- 
sciously betrays it in the modest reluctance with which she yields 
up the secret of Hamlet’s courtship. The extorted confession of 
what she has received reveals how much she has given ; the soft 
tremblings of her bosom being made the plainer by the delicate 
lawn of silence thrown over it. Even when despair is wringing 
her innocent young soul into an utter wreck, she seems not to 
know the source of her affliction; and the truth comes out only 
when her sweet mind, which once breathed such enchanting masie, 
lies broken in fragments before us, and the secrets of her maiden 
heart are hovering on her demented tongue. 

One of the bitterest ingredients in poor Ophelia’s cup is the 
belief that by her repulse of Hamlet she has dismantled his fair 
and stately house of reason; and when, forgetting the wounds with 
which her own pure spirit is bleeding, over the spectacle of that 
“ unmatch’d form and feature of blown youth blasted with ecstacy,” 
she meets his, “I loved you not,’’ with the despairing sigh, «I 
was the more deceived,” we see that she feels not the sundering 
of the ties that bind her sweetly-tempered faculties in harmony. 
Yet we blame not Hamlet, for he is himself but a victim of an in- 
exorable power which is spreading its ravages through nim over 
another life as pure and heayenly as his own. Standing on the 
verge of an abyss whichis yawning to engulph himself, his very 
effort to frighten her back from it only hurries her in before him. 


192 HAMLET, PRINCE OF DENMARK. 


To snatch another jewel from Mrs. Jameson’s casket. — “ He has 
no thought to link his terrible destiny with hers: he cannot marry 
her: he cannot reveal to her, young, gentle, innocent as she 1s, the 
terrific influences which have changed the whole current of his life 
and purposes. In his distraction he overacts the painful part to 
which he has tasked himself; like that judge of the Areopagus 
who, being occupied with graver matters, flung from him the little 
bird which had sought refuge in his bosom, and with such angry 
violence, that he unwittingly killed it.” ; 

Ophelia’s insanity exhausts the fountains of human pity. It is 
one of those mysterious visitings over which we can only brood in 
silent sympathy and awe; which Heaven alone has a heart ad- 
equately to pity, and a hand effectually to heal. Its pathos were 
too much to be borne, but for the sweet incense that rises from her 
crushed spirit, as “she turns thought and affliction, passion, hell 
itself, to favour and to prettiness.”” Of her death what shall be 
said? The victim of crimes in which she has no share but as a 
sufferer, we hail with joy the event that snatches her from the rack 
of this world. The “snatches of old lauds,” with which she 
chaunts, as it were, her own burial service, are like smiles gusb- 
ing from the very heart of woe. We must leave her, with the 
words of Hazlitt: «O, rose of May! O, flower too soon faded! 
Her love, her madness, her death, are described with the truest 
touches of tenderness and pathos. It is a character which nobody 
but Shakespeare could have drawn in the way that he bas done 5 
and to the ‘conception of which there is not the smallest approach, 
except in some of the old romantic ballads.” 

The Queen’s affection for this lovely being is one of those un- 
expected strokes, so frequent in Shakespeare, which surprise us 
into reflection by their naturalness. That Ophelia should disclose 
a vein of goodness in the Queen, was necessary perhaps to keep 
us both from underrating the influence of the one, and from. ex- 
aggerating the wickedness of the other. The love which she thus 
awakens tells us that her helplessness springs from innocence, not 
from weakness; and so serves to prevent the pity which her con-. 
dition moves from lessening the respect due to her character. 

Almost any other aathor would have depicted Gertrude without 
a single alleviating trait in her character. Beaumont and Fletcher 
would probably have made her simply frightful or loathsome, and 
capable only of exciting abhorrence or disgust; if, indeed, in her 
monstrous depravity she had not rather failed to excite any feel-. 
ing. Shakespeare, with far more effect as well as far more truth, 
exhibits her with such a mixture of good and bad, as neither dis- 
arms censure nor precludes pity. Herself dragged along in the 
terrible train of consequences which her own guilt bad a band in 
starting, she is hurried away into the same dreadful abyss along 
with those whom she loves, and against*whom she has sinned. In 
her tenderness towards Hamlet and Ophelia, we recognise the vir- 


" 


INTRODUCTION. 193 


tues of the mother without in the least palliating the guilt of the 
wife ; while the crimes in which she is an accomplice almost dis- 
appear in those of which she is the victim. 

The plan of this drama seems to consist in the persons being 
represented as without plans; for, as Goethe happily remarks, 
‘the hero is without any plan, but the play itself is full of plan.” 
As the action, so far as there is any, is shaped and determined 
rather for the characters than from them, all their energies could 
the better be translated into thought. Hence of all the Poet's 
dramas this probably combines the greatest strength and diversity 
of faculties. Sweeping round the whole circle of human thought 
and passion, its alternations of amazement and terror; of lust, 
ambition, and remorse } of hope; love, friendship, anguish, mad- 
ness, and despair ; of wit, humour, pathos, poetry, and philosophy ; 
now congealing the blood with horror, now melting the heart with 
pity, now launching the mind into eternity, now startling con- 
science from her lonely seat with supernatural visitings ;— it un- 
folds indeed a world of truth, and beauty, and sublimity. 

Of its varied excellences, only a few of the Jess obvious need 
be specified. The platform scenes are singularly charged with 
picturesque effect. The chills of a northern winter midnight seem 
creeping on us, as the heart-sick sentinels pass in view, and, steeped 
in moonlight and drowsiness, exchange their meeting and parting © 
salutations. ‘The thoughts and images that rise in their minds are 
just such as the anticipation of preternatural visions would be likely 
to inspire. As the bitter cold stupefies their senses, an indescrib- 
able feeling of dread and awe stealsgover them, preparing the 
mind to realise its own superstitious imaginings. And the feeling 
one has in reading these scenes is not unlike that of a child pass- 
ing a grave-yard by moonlight. Out of the dim and drowsy 
moonbeams apprehension creates its own objects ; his fancies em- 
body themselves in surrounding facts ; his fears give shape to out- 
ward things, while those things give outwardness to his fears. — 
The heterogeneous elements that are brought together in the grave- 
digging scene, with its strange mixture of songs and witticisms and 
dead men’s bones, and its still stranger transitions of the grave, 
the sprightly, the meditative, the solemn, the playful, and the gro- 
tesque, make it one of the most wonderful yet most natural scenes 
in the drama.— In view of the terrible catastrophe, Goethe has 
the following weighty sentence: “It is the tendency of crime to 
spread its evils over innocence, as it is of virtue to diffuse its 
blessings over many who deserve them not; while, frequently, the 
author of the one or of the other is not, so far as we can see, pun- 
ished or rewarded.” 


VOL. X. 17 13 


PERSONS REPRESENTED. 


Criavupivs, King of Denmark. 
Hamer, his Nephew; Son of the former King. 
Potonivus, Lord Chamberlain. 
Horatio, Friend to Hamlet. 
LarErTES, Son of Polonius. 
VoLTIMAND, a 
Ay aT he \ Courtiers. 
OSENCRANTZ, 
GUILDENSTERN, } 
Osrick,.a Courtier. 
Another Courtier. 
A Priest. 
siti me We Offiders. 
ERNARDO, 
Francisco, a Soldier. ; 
REYNALDO, Servant to Polonius. 
A Captain. Ambassadors. 
The Ghost of Hamlet’s Father. 
ForTinBras, Prince of Norway. 
Two Grave-diggers. ‘ 
GERTRUDE, Mother of Hamlet, and Queen. 
OPHELIA, Daughter of Polonius. 


Lords, Ladies, Officers, Soldiers, Players, Sailors, Messen 
gers, and Attendants. La 


SCENE, Elsinore. 


THE TRAGEDY OF HAMLET. 


ACT I. 
SCENE I. Elsinore. 


A Platform before the Castle. 


Francisco on his Post. Enter to him BERNARDO. 


Ber. Wuo’s there? 

Fran. Nay, answer me :* stand, and unfold your- 
self. 

Ber. Long live the king! 

Fran. Bernardo ? 


Ber. He. 


1 That is, answer me, as I have the right to challenge you, 
Bernardo then gives in answer the watch-word, « Long live the 
kipg! ”” — “ Compare,” says Coleridge, “the easy language of 
common life, in which this drama commences, with the direful mu« 
sic and wild wayward rhythm and abrupt lyries of the opening of 
‘Macbeth. The tone is quite familiar: there is no poetic descrip- 
tion of night, no elaborate information conveyed by one speaker 
to another of what both had immediately before their senses ; and 
yet nothing bordering on the comic on the one hand, nor any 
striving of the intellect on the other. It is precisely the language 
of sensation among men who feared no charge of effeminacy for 
feeling what they had no want of resolution to bear. Yet the ar- 
mour, the dead silence, the watchfulness that first interrupts it, the 
welcome relief of the guard, the cold, the broken expressions of 
compelled attention to bodily feelings still under control, —all ex- 
cellently accord with, and prepare for, the after gradual rise into 
‘tragedy ; but, above all, into a tragedy, the interest of which is as 
eminently ad et apud intra, as that of Macbeth is directly ad 
extra.” H. 


7 ae 


196 «HAMLET, ACT T. 


Fran. You come most carefully upon your hour. 
Ber. ’Tis now struck twelve: get thee to bed, 
Francisco. 
Fran. For this relief, much thanks: ’tis bitter cold, 
And I am sick at heart. 
Ber. Have you had quiet guard? 
Fran. Not a mouse stirring. 
Ber. Well, good night. 
If you do meet Horatio and Marcellus, 
The rivals of my watch,’ bid them make haste. 


Enter Horatio and MAaRrcEeLuus. 
Fran. Y think I hear them. —Stand, ho! Who is 


there ? 
Hor. Friends to this ground. 
Mar. And liegemen to the Dane. 
Fran. Give you good night. 
Mar. O, farewell, honest soldier ! 
Who hath reliev’d you ? 
Fran. Bernardo has my place. 
Give you good night.’ [ Exit. 
Mar. Holla! Bernardo! 
Ber. Say. 
‘What! is Horatio there ? 
* Ffor. A piece of him. 
Ber. Welcome, Horatio: welcome, good Mar- 
cellus. 


2 Rivals are associates or partners. A brook, rivulet, or river, 
rivus, being a natural boundary between different proprietors, was 
owned by Anse in common ; that is, they were partners in the 
right and use of it. From the strifes thus engendered, the part- 
ners came to be contenders: hence the ordinary sense of rival. 
See Antony and Cleopatra, Act iii. se. 5, note 1. H. 

3 This salutation is an abbreviated form of, “ May God give 
you a good night;”’ which has been still further abbrevinied in 
the phrase, « Good night.” H. 


ee ee ee eee eS eS eee ee 
“ P 


SC. L. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 197° 


Hor What! has this thing appear’d again to- 
night ?* 
Ber. I have seen nothing. 
Mar. Horatio says ’tis but our fantasy, 
And will not let belief take hold of him, 
Touching this dreaded sight twice seen of us 
Therefore, I have intreated him along 
With us to watch the minutes of this night ; 
That, if again this apparition come, 
He may approve our eyes,° and speak to it. 


4 The folio assigns this speech to Marcellus. The quartos are 
probably right, as Horatio comes on purpose to try his own eyes 
on the Ghost.— We quote from Coleridge again: « Bernardo’s 
inquiry after Horatio, and the repetition of his name in bis own 
presence indicate a respect or an eagerness that implies him as 
one of the persons who are in the foreground ; and the scepticism 
attributed to him prepares us for Hamlet’s afier eulogy on him as 
one whose blood and judgment were happily commingled. Now, 
observe the admirable indefiniteness of the first opening out of the 
occasion of all this anxiety. The preparative information of the 
audience is just as much as was precisely necessary, and no more ; 
—it begins with the uncertainty appertaining to a question: 
‘What! has this thing appear’d again to-night?’ Even the word 
again has its credibilizing effect. Then Horatio, the representa- 
tive of the ignorance of the audience, not himself, but by Marcel- 
lus to Bernardo, anticipates the common solution, —¢’Tis but our 
fantasy 3’ apon which Marcellus rises into, —‘ This dreaded sight 
twice seen of us;’ which immediately afterwards becomes ¢ this 
apparition,’ and that, too, an intelligent spirit that is to be spoken 
to)?’ H. 

® That is, make good our vision, or prove our eyes to be true. 
Approve was ofien thus used in the sense of confirm. — Coleridge 
continues his comments on the scene thus: «“ Then comes the con- 
firmation of Horatio’s disbelief, —‘Tush, tush! ’twill not appear ;’ 
— and the silence with which the scene opened is again restored 
in the shivering feeling of Horatio sitting down, at such a time, 
and with the two eye-wilnesses, to hear a story. of a ghost, and 
that, too, of a ghost which had appeared twice before at the very 
same hour. In the deep feeling which Bernardo has of the solemn 
nature of what he is about to relate, he makes an effort to master 
his own imaginative terrors by an elevation of style, — itself a 
continuation of the effort, — and by turning off from the apparition, 
as from something which would force him too deeply into himself, 


LG 


198 HAMLET, ACT I.. 


Hor. Tush, tush! twill not appear. 
Ber. Sit down awhile ; 
And let us once again assail your ears, 
That are so fortified against our story, 
What we two nights have seen. 
Hor. Well, sit we down, 
And let us hear Bernardo speak of «this. 
Ber. Last night of all, 
When yond’ same star, that’s westward from the 
pole, 
Had made his course t’ illume that part of heaven 
Where now it burns, Marcellus and myself, 
The bell then beating one,® — 
Mar. Peace! break thee off: look, where it comes 
again ! 


Enter the Ghost. 


Ber. In the same figure, like the king that’s dead. 
Mar. Thou art a scholar; speak to it, Horatio.’ 


to the outward objects, the realities of nature, which had accom- 
panied it.” H. 

6 This passage seems to contradict the critical law, that what 
is told makes a faint impression compared with what is beholden ; 
for it does indeed convey to the mind more than the eye can see 3 
whilst the interruption of the narrative at the very moment when 
we are most intensely listening for the sequel, and have our thoughts 
diverted from the dreaded sight in expectation of the desired, yet 
almost dreaded, tale, — this gives all the suddenness and surprise 
of the original appearance : “ Peace! break thee off: look, where 
it comes again!’’ Note the judgment displayed in having the two 
persons present, who, as having seen the Ghost before, are natu- 
rally eager in confirming their former opinions ; whilst the seeptic 
is silent, and, after having been twice addressed by his friends, 
answers with two’hasty syllables, — “ Most like,” —and a confes- 
sion of horror: “ It harrows me with fear and wonder.” —CoLE- 
RIDGE. H. 

7 It was believed that a supernatural being could only be spoken 
to with effect by persons of learning ; exorcisms being usually prac- 
tised by the clergy in Latin. So in The Night Walker of Beau 
mont and Fletcher : 


PRINCE OF DENMARK. 199 


Ber. Looks it not like the king? mark it, Horatio. 
Hor. Most like: —it harrows me with fear® and 
wonder. 
Ber. It wouid be spoke to. 
Mar. Question it, Horatio. 
Hor. What art thou, that usurp’st this time of 
night, 
Together with that fair and warlike form 
In which the majesty of buried Denmark 
Did sometimes march? by Heayen I charge thee, 
speak ! 
Mar. It is offended. 
Ber. See! it stalks away. 
Hor. Stay! speak, speak! I charge thee, speak! 
[Exit Ghost. 
Mar. ’Tis gone, and will not answer. 
Ber. How now, Horatio! you tremble and look 
pale. 
Is not this something more than fantasy ? 2 
What think you on’t? 
Hor. Before my God, I might not this believe, 
Without the sensible and true avouch 
Of mine own eyes. 
Mar. Is it not like the king ? 
for. As thou art to thyself. 
Such was the very armour he had on, 
When he th’ ambitious Norway combated: 
So frown’d he once, when, in an angry parle, 


“ Let’s call the butler up, for he speaks Latin, 
And that will daunt the devil.” 


8 The first quarto reads, “it horrors me.” To harrow is to 
distress, to vex, to disturb. To harry and to harass have the 
Same origin. Milton has the word in Comus: “ Amaz’d I stood, 
harrow’d with grief and fear.’’ —“ Question it,’”’ in the next line, 
is the reading of the folio; other old copies have “ Speak to it.” 

H. 


200 HAMLET, ACT I. 


He smote the sledded Polacks on the ice.® 
"Tis strange. 
Mar. Thus, twice before, and jump”° at this dead 
hour, 
With martial stalk hath he gone by our watch. ' 
Hor. Yn what particular thought to work, I know 
not 5 
But, in the gross and scope of mine opinion, 
This bodes some strange eruption to our state. 
Mar. Good now; sit down, and tell me, he that 
knows, 
Why this same strict and most observant watch 
So nightly toils the subject of the land ? 
And why such daily cast of brazen cannon, 
And foreign mart for implements of war? 
Why such impress of shipwrights, whose sore task 
Does not divide the Sunday from the week? 
What might be toward, that this sweaty haste 
Doth make the night joint-labourer with the day ? 
Who is’t, that can inform me? 
Flor. That can I; 
At least, the whisper goes so. Our last king, 
Whose image even but now appear’d to us, 
Was, as you know, by Fortinbras of Norway, 
Thereto prick’d on by a most emulate pride, 
Dar’d to the combat; in which our valiant Hamlet 
(For’so this side of our known world esteem’d him) 
Did slay this Fortinbras ; who, by a seal’d compact, 
Well ratified by law and heraldry, 


® Polacks was used for Polanders in Shakespeare’s time. 
Sledded is sledged ; on a sled or sleigh. — Parle, in the presen 
line, is the same as parley. 

10 So all the quartos. The folio reads just. Jump and “ait 
were synonymous in the time of Shakespeare. So in Chapman’s 
May Day, 1611: “ Your appointment was jwmpe at three with 
me.” 


Pe 


= 


PRINCE OF DENMARK. 201 


Did forfeit with his life all those his lands, 
Which he stood seiz’d of,"! to the conqueror: 
Against the which, a moiety competent 

Was gaged by our king ; which had return’d 

To the inheritance of Fortinbras, 

Had he been vanquisher; as, by the same co-mart, 
And carriage of the article design’d,! 

His fell to Hamlet. Now, sir, young Fortinbras, 
Of unimproved mettle hot and full,!® 

Hath in the skirts of Norway, here and there, 
Shark’d up a list of landless resolutes, 

For food and diet, to some enterprise 

That hath a stomach in’t :'4 which is no other 
(As it doth well appear unto our state) 

But to recover of us, by strong hand 

And terms compulsative,!® those ’foresaid lands 
So by his father lost. And this, I take it, 

Is the main motive of our preparations, 


11 This is the old legal phrase, still in use, for held possession 
of, or was the rightful owner of. H. 
Co-mart is the reading of the quartos ; the folio reads, cov’- 
nant. Co-mart, it is presumed, means a joint bargain. No other 
instance of the word is known. Design’d is here used in the sense 
of the Latin designatus ; carriage in the sense of import: that is, 
the import of the article marked out for that purpose. 

13 That is, of unimpeached or unquestioned courage. To im- 
prove ancienily signified to impeach, to impugn. Thus Florio: 
“Improbare, to improove, to impugn.”” The French have still im- 
prouver, with the same meaning ; from improbare, Lat. Numer- 
ous instances of improve in this sense may be found in the writings 
of Shakespeare’s time. — Shark’d is snapped up or taken up hasti- 
ly. “ Seroccare is properly to do any thing at another man’s cost, 
to shark or shift for any thing. Scroccolone, a cunning shifter or 
sharker for any thing in time of need, namely for victuals ; a tall 
trencher-man, shifting up and down for belly cheer.’ The quar- 
tos have lawless instead of landless, of the folio. Lawless may be 
right. 

14 Stomach is used for determined purpose. 

15 So the folio; the quartos, compulsatory, which carries the 
sume meaning, but overfills the measure. x. 


202 - , HAMLET, — * ACT, Li 


The source of this our watch, and the chief head 
Of this post-haste and romage in the land.” 

‘Ber. Uthink it be no other but e’en so: 
Well may it sort,’’ that this portentous figure 
Comésarmed through our watch; so like the king ~ 
That was, and is, the question of these wars. 

Hor. A mote it is, to trouble the mind’s eye. 

In the most high and palmy’® state of Rome, 
A little ere the mightiest Julius fell, 
The graves stood tenantless, and the sheeted dead 
Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets: 
As, stars with trains of fire and dews of blood, 
Disasters in the sun; and the moist star,”® 
Upon whose influence Neptune’s empire stands, 
Was sick almost to.doomsday with eclipse. 
And even the like precurse of fierce events— 
As harbingers preceding still the fates, 
And prologue to. the omen*® coming on — 
Have heaven and earth together demonstrated 
Unto our climatures and countrymen. — 


16 Romage, now spelt rummage, is used for ransacking, or mak- 
ing a thorough search. — What follows, after this line down to the 
re-entrance of the Ghost, is wanting in the folio of 1623 and in the. 
quarto of 1603. H. 

17 That is, fit, suit, or agree: often so used. 

18 That is, victorious ; the Palm being the emblem of victory. 

19 There is evidently some corruption here, but it has hitherto 
baffled remedy, and seems to be given up as hopeless. Both the 
general structure of the sentence and the exigencies of the sense 
clearly favour the belief that as stars is a misprint for some word 
of two syllables, and disasters for some verb, For the first, Ma- 
Jone would read astres ; to which Steevens objects that there is no 
authority for such a word. The passage in North’s translation of 
Plutarch, Life of Julius Caesar, which the Poet probably had in 
his eye, yields no certain help. See, however, Julius Caesar, Act 
j. sc. 3, note 2, and Act ii. se. 2, note 2.— “The moist star”? is 
the moon. So in Marlowe’s Hero and Leander: “ Not that night- 
wand’ring pale and watery star.” H. 

20 Omen is here put for portentous event. The use of the word 
is classical. H. 


— 


PRINCE OF DENMARK. - 203 


Re-enter the Ghost. 


But, soft! behold! lo, where i comes again ! 


I'll cross it, though it blast me.*' — Stay, ‘illusion ! 
If thou hast any sound, or use of voice, 
Speak to me: Y 


If there be any good thing to be done, 
That may to thee do ease, and grace to me, 
Speak to me: 
If thou art privy to thy country’s fate, 
Which, happily, foreknowing, may avoid, 
O, speak ! 
Or, if thou hast uphoarded in thy life 
Extorted treasure in the womb of earth, 
For which, they say, you spirits oft walk in death, 
[Cock crows. 
Speak of it:—vstay, and speak!—Stop it, Mar 
cellus. 
Mar. Shall I strike at it with my partisan ? 
Hor. Do, if it will not stand. 


Ber. "Tis here! 
Hor. Tis here! 
Mar. ’Tis gone. [Exit Ghost. 


We do it wrong, being so majestical, 
To offer it the show of violence ; 

For it is, as the air, invulnerable, 

And our vain blows malicious mockery. 


21 It was believed that a person crossing the path of a spectre 
became subject to its malignant influence. Lodge’s lustrations 
of English History, speaking of Ferdinand, Earl of Derby, who 
died by witchcraft, as was supposed, in 1594, has the following : 
“On Friday there appeared a tall man, who twice crossed him 
swiftly ; and when the earl came to the place where he saw this 
man, he fell sick.’”? — Johnson remarks that this speech of Horatio 
is very elegant and noble, and congruous to the common traditions 
touching apparitions. H 


q eee -" mL) om 
aes. “Aare * ie ee 
Ly 4/ “at ss 2 
we Ay 7 . 


\ 


204 HAMLET, ACT I 


Ber. It was about to speak, when the cock crew. 

Hfor. And then it started like a guilty thing 
Upon a fearful summons. I have heard, 

The cock, that is the trumpet to the morn,” 
Doth with his lofty and shrill-sounding throat 
Awake the god of day; and at his warning, 
Whether in sea or fire, in earth or air, 

Tl’ extravagant and erring spirit hies 

‘T’o his confine :** and of the truth herein 
‘This present object made probation. 

Mar. It faded on the crowing of the cock.* 
Some say, that ever ’gainst that season comes 
Wherein our Saviour’s birth is celebrated, 

This bird of dawning singeth all night long: 

And then, they say, no spirit dares stir abroad ;*° 
The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike, 
No fairy takes,*° nor witch hath power to charm, 
So hallow’d and so gracious is the time. 


22 So the quartos ; the folio has day instead of morn. Drayton 
gives the cock the same office: 


“ And now. the cocke, the morning’s trumpeter, 
Play’d hunts-up for the day-star to appear.” H. 


23 Extravagant is extra-vagans, wandering about, going be- 
yond bounds. Lrring is erruticus, straying or roving up and 
down. Mr. Douce has justly observed that « the epithets eaxtrav- 
agant and erring are highly poetical and appropriate, and seem 
to prove that Shakespeare was not altogether ignorant of the Latin 
language.” 

*4 This is a very ancient superstition. Philostratus, giving an 
account of the apparition of Achilles’ shade to Apollonius of Ty- 
anna, says, “it vanished with a little gleam as soon as the cock 
. crowed.” There is a Hymn of Prudentius, and another of St. 
Aimbrose, in which it.is mentioned ; and there are some lines in 
the Jatter very much resembling Horatio’s speech. 

29 So read all the quartos but the first; the folio has, “no spirit 
can walk abroad.” It is difficult which to prefer, both readings 
being so good. H. 

76 That is, no fairy blasts, or infects. See The Merry Wives 
of Windsor, Act iv. sc. 4, note 2. — Gracious is sometimes used 


~~ 


Be i 


SC. Il. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 205 


For. So have I heard, and do in part believe it. 
But, look, the morn, in russet mantle clad, 
Walks o’er the dew of yond’ high eastern hill. 
Break we our watch up; and, by my advice, 
Let us impart what we have seen to-night 
Unto young Hamlet ; for, upon my life, 
This spirit, dumb to us, will speak to him. 
Do you consent we shall acquaint him with it, 
As needful in our loves, fitting our duty ?°7 / 
Mar. Let’s do’t, I pray; and I this morning know 
Where we shall find him most convenient. [ Exeunt. 


SCENE II. 


The Same. A Room of State. 


Enter the King, the Queen, Hamuet, Powonws, 
Laertes, VotTimanp, Cornexius, Lords, and 
Attendants. 


King. Though yet of Hamlet our dear brother’s 
death | 

The memory be green ; and that it us befitted 
To bear our hearts in grief, and our whole kingdom 
To be contractetl in one brow of woe; 
Yet so far hath discretion fought with nature, 
That we with wisest sorrow think on him, 
Together with remembrance of ourselves. 
Therefore, our sometime sister, now our queen, 


ny Shakespeare for graced, favoured. See As You Like It, Act 
i, sc. 2, note 11.— The quartos have “that time,” and further on, 
eastward for eastern. 

27 Note the inobtrusive and yet fully adequate mode of intro- 
ducing the main character, “ young Hamlet,” upon whom is trans- 
feried all the interest excited for the acts and concerns of the king 
his father. — CoLERIDGE. H. 


Kye Xe 18 


— 206 HAMLET, ACT L. 


Th’ imperial jointress of this warlike state, 
Have we, as ’twere, with a defeated joy, — 
With one auspicious, and one dropping eye 3} 
With mirth in funeral, and with dirge in marriage, 
In equal scale weighing delight and dole, — 
Taken to wife: nor have we herein barr’d 
Your better wisdoms, which have freely gone 
With this affair along: For all, our thanks. | 
Now follows, that you know, young Fortinbras, 
Holding a weak supposal of our worth, ¥ 
Or thinking, by our late dear brother’s death, — 
Our state to be disjoint and out of frame, 
Colleagued with this dream of his advantage, 
He hath not fail’d to pester us with message, 
Importing the surrender of those lands 

Lost by his father, with all bonds of law, 

To our most valiant brother. — So much for him. 
Now for ourself, and for this time of meeting. 
Thus much the business is: We have here writ 
To Norway, uncle of young Fortinbras, — 
Who, impotent and bed-rid, scarcely hears 

Of this his nephew’s purpose, — to suppress 
His further gait herein ;” in that the levies, 
The lists, and full proportions, are all made 
Out of his subject. And we heré despatch 
You, good Cornelius, and you, Voltimand, 

For bearers of this greeting to old Norway ; 
Giving to you no further personal power 

To business with the king, more than the scope 


1 The same thought occurs in The Winter's Tale: “She had 
one eye deelin’d for the loss of her husband, another elevated that 
the oracle was fulfill’d.” There is an old proverbial phrase, “ To 
laugh with one eye, and ery with the other.” 

2 Gait here signifies course, progress. (rait for road, way, 
path, is still in use. — Subject, next line but one, is used for subs 
jects, or those subject to him. H. 


sc. Il. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 207 


Of these dilated articles allow.* 


Farewell; and let your haste commend your duty. 

Cor. Vol. In that, and all things, will we show 
our duty. 
King. We doubt it nothing: heartily farewell. — 
[Exeunt VoLTIMAND and CoRNELIUS. 

And now, Laertes, what’s the news with you? 

You told us of some suit: what is’t, Laertes ? 

You cannot speak of reason to the Dane, 

And lose your voice: What would’st thou beg, 
Laertes, 

That shall not be my offer, not thy asking ? 

The head is not more native to the heart, 

The hand more instrumental to the mouth, 

Than is the throne of Denmark to thy father.‘ 


What would’st thou have, Laertes ? 


Laer. My dread lord, 
Your leave and favour to return to France; 
From whence though willingly I came to Denmark, 
To show my duty in your coronation ; 
Yet now, I must confess, that duty done, 
My thoughts ahd wishes bend again toward France, 
And bow them to your gracious leave and pardon. 
King. Have you your father’s leave ? What says 
Polonius ? 


3 That is, the scope of these articles when dilated or explained 
in full. Such elliptical expressions are common with the Poet, 
from his having more thought than space. The rules of modern 
grammar would require adlows instead of allow ; but in old writers, 
when the noun and the verb have a genitive intervening, nothing 
is more common than for the verb to take the number of the gen- 
itive. — “In the king’s speech,” says Coleridge, “observe the set 
and pedantically antithetic form of the sentences when touching 
that which galled the heels of conscience, — the strain of undig- 
nified rhetoric ; and yet in what follows concerning the public weal, 


a certain appropriate majesty.” H. 


4 The various parts of the body enumerated are not more allied, 
more necessary to each other, than the king of Denmark is bound 
to your father to do him service. 


208 HAMLET, | Keres 


Pol. He hath, my lord, wrung from me my slow 
leave, 
By laboursome petition ; and, at last, 
Upon his will I seal’d my hard consent: 
I do beseech you, give him leave to go.” 
King. Take thy fair hour, Laertes; time be thine, 
And thy best graces spend it at thy will.°— 
But now, my cousin Hamlet, and my son, — 
Ham. [Aside.] A little more than kin, and less 
~ than kind.’ 
King. How 1s it that the clouds still hang on you? 
Ham. Not so, my lord; I am too much i’the sun.® 
Queen. Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted colour off, 
And let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark. 
Do not, for ever, with thy vailed lids® 


5 The first three lines of this speech, all but “He hath, my 
lord,’ are wanting in the folio. H. 

6 The king’s speech may be thus explained : “ Take an auspi- 
cious hour, Laertes; be your time your own, and thy best virtues 
guide thee in spending of it at thy will.” Johnson thought that 
we should read, “And my best graces.” The editors had rendered 
this passage obscure by placing a colon at graces. 

7 A little more than kin has been rightly said to allude to the 
double relationship of the king to Hamlet, as uncle and step-father, 
his kindred by blood and kindred by marriage. By less than kind 
Hamlet means degenerate and base. “Going out of kinde,” says 
Baret, “which goeth out of kinde, which dothe or worketh dishon- 
our to his kinred. Wegener; forlignant.’”” “ Forligner,” says 
Cotgrave, “to degenerate, to grow out of kind, to differ in con- 
ditions with his ancestors.” That less than kind and out of kind 
have the same meaning who can doubt? 

8 This is commonly thought’to be a sarcastic play upon the 
words sun and son; as the being called son by his uncle naturally 
reminds Hamlet of his mother’s incest. Perhaps, however, the 
true meaning is best explained by the following, from Grindal’s 
Profitable Discourse, 1555: «In very deed they were brought 
from the good to the bad, and from God's blessing, as the proverbe 
is, into a warme sonne.”” See King Lear, Act il. sc. 2, note 27.— 
In the next line, the folio has nightly instead of nighted. H. 

® That is, with downcast eyes. We have repeatedly seen, that 
to vail was to lower or let fall. See The Merchant of Veuice, 

- Acti sc.1, note 3. H. 


74) 


SC. IL. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 209 


Seek for thy noble father in the dust: 
Thou know’st ’tis common; all that live must die, 
Passing through nature to eternity. 
Ham. Ay, madam, it is common.’° 
Queen. If it be, 
Why seems it so particular with thee ? ® 
Ham. Seems, madam! nay, it is; I know not 
seems. 
*Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother, 
Nor customary suits of solemn black, 
Nor windy suspiration of fore’d breath, 
No, nor the fruitful river in the eye, 
Nor the dejected haviour of the visage, 
Together with all forms, moods, shows of grief, 
That can denote me truly : these, indeed, seem, 
For they are actions that a man might play ; 
But I have that within, which passeth show ; 
These, but the trappings and the suits of woe. 
King. "Tis sweet and commendable in your na- 
ture, Hamlet, 
To give these mourning duties to your father : 
But, you must know, your father lost a father ; 
That father lost, lost his; and the survivor bound 
In filial obligation, for some term, 
To do obsequious sorrow.'' But to persever 


10 Here observe Hamlet’s delicacy to his mother, and how the 
suppression prepares him for the overflow in the next speech, in 
which his character is more developed by bringing forward his 
aversion to externals, and which betrays his habit of brooding over 
the world within him, coupled with a prodigality of beautiful words, 
which are the half-embodyings of thought, and are more than 
thought, and have an outness, a reality swi generis, and yet retain 
their correspondence and shadowy affinity to the images and move- 
ments within. Note, also, Hamlet’s silence to the long speech of 
the King, which follows, and his respectful, but general, answer to 
his mother. —CoLERIDGE, H. 

11 The Poet sometimes uses obsequious as having the sense of 
obsequies. So in his 3ist Sonnet: 


18 * 7 


210 HAMLET, , ACT I 


In obstinate condolement, is a course 

Of impious stubbornness; ’tis unmanly grief: 

It shows a will most incorrect to Heaven ;}” 

A heart unfortified, a mind impatient, 

An understanding simple and unschool’d : 

For what, we know, must be, and is as common 

As any the most vulgar thing to sense, 

' Why should we, in our peevish opposition, 

Take it to heart? Fie! ’tis a fault to Heaven, 

A fault against the dead, a fault to nature, 

To reason most absurd; whose common theme 

Is death of fathers, and who still hath cried, 

From the first corse till he that died to-day, 

«This must be so.” We pray you, throw to earth 

This unprevailing woe,’*:and think of us 

As of a father ; for, let the world take note, 

You are the most immediate to our throne ; 

And, with no less nobility of love 

Than that which dearest father bears his son, 

Do I impart** toward you. For your intent 

In going back to school in Wittenberg, 

It is most retrograde to our desire; 

And, we beseech you, bend you to remain 

Here, in the cheer and comfort of our eye, 

Our chiefest courtier, cousin, and our son. 
Queen. Let not thy mother lose her prayers, 

Hamlet : 
I pray thee, stay with us; go not to Wittenberg. 


“ How meny a holy and obsequious tear 
Hath dear religious love stol’n from mine eye, 
As interest of the dead!” a. 


*8 Incorrect is here used, apparently, in the sense of incorrigi- 
bue. H. 
13 Unprevailing was used in the sense of unavailing as late as 
Dryden’s time. 

14 That is, dispense, bestow. 


Sc. II PRINCE OF DENMARK. 211 


FfTam. J shall in all my best obey you, madam. 
King. Why, ’tis a loving and a fair reply: 
Be as ourself in Denmark. — Madam, come ; 
This gentle and unfore’d accord of Hamlet 
Sits smiling to my heart; in grace whereof, 
No jocund health that Denmark drinks to-day, 
But the great cannon to the clouds shall tell, 
And the king’s rouse’ the heaven shall bruit again, 
Re-speaking earthly thunder. Come away. 
[EVourish. Exeunt all but HAMLET. 
Ham. O, that this too, too solid flesh would melt, 
Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew!'® 
Or that the Everlasting had not fix’d 
His canon ’gainst self-slaughter! O God! O God! 
How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable 
Seem to me all the uses of this world! 
Fie on’t! O fie! ’tis an unweeded garden 
That grows to seed ; things rank and gross in nature 
Possess it merely.’7 That it should come to this! 
But two months dead !— nay, not so much, not two: 
So excellent a king; that was, to this, 
Hyperion to a satyr:'* so loving to my mother, 
That he might not beteem the winds of heaven 
Visit her face too roughly. Heaven and earth! 
Must I remember? why, she would hang on him, 


15 A rouse was a deep draught to one’s health, wherein it was 
the custem to empty the cup or goblet. Its meaning, and prob- 


ably its origin, was the same as carouse, still in use. H. 
16 To resolve had anciently the same meaning as to dissolve. 
“ To thaw or resolve that which is frozen 3 regelo. — The snow is 


resolved and melted. To till the ground, and resolve it into dust.” 
— CooPER. \ 

17 That is, absolutely, solely, wholly. Mere, Lat. 

18 Hyperion, or Apollo, always represented as a model of beau- 
ty. — Beteem is permit or suffer. The word, being uncommon 
was changed to permitted by Rowe, and to let ¢ en by Theobald. 
See A Midsummer-Night’s Dream, Act i, sc. 1, note 5 


O18 HAMLET, ACT L 


As if increase of appetite had grown 

By what it fed on: and yet, within a month, — 

Let me not think on’t ;—Frailty, thy name is wo- 
man ! — 

A little month; or ere those shoes were old, 

With which she follow’d my poor father’s body, 

Like Niobe, all tears; — why she, even she, — 

O God! a beast, that wants discourse of reason,’® 
Would have mourn’d longer, — married with mine 
uncle, . 

My father’s brother ; but no more like my father, 

Than I to Hercules: within a month; 

Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears 

Had left the flushing in her galled eyes, 

She married. —O, most: wicked speed, to post 
‘With such dexterity to incestuous sheets ! 

It is not, nor it cannot come to, good ; 

But break, my heart, for I must hold my tongue !* 


19 Discourse of reason, in old philosophical Janguage, is rational — 
discourse, or discursive reason; the faculty of pursuing a train 
of thought, or of passing from thought to thought in the way of 
inference or conclusion. Readers of Milton will remember the fine 
lines in Paradise Lost, Book v.: 


«“ Whence the soul 
Reason receives, and reason is her being, 
Discursive or intuitive : discourse 
Is oftest yours, the Jatter most is ours, 
Differing but in degree, in kind the same.” H. 


20 This tedium vite is a common oppression on minds cast ip 
the Hamlet mould, and is caused by disproportionate mental ex 
ertion, which necessitates exhaustion of bodily feeling. Where _ 
there is a just coincidence of external and internal action, pleas- - 
ure is always the result; but where the former is deficient, and the 
mind’s appetency of the ideal is unchecked, realities will seem cold 
and unmoving. In such cases, passion combines itself with the 
indefinite alone. In this mood of his mind, the relation of the ap- 
pearance of his father’s spirit in arms is made all at once to Ham- 
let : — it is— Horatio’s speech, in particular — a perfect model of 
he true style of dramatic narrative ; the purest poetry, and yet 


= 


SC. IL PRINCE OF DENMARK. 213 


Enter Horatio, BerRNaRvDo, and Marceuuus. 


Ffor. Hail to your lordship ! 
Ham. I am glad to see you well: 
Horatio, — or I do forget myself. 
Hor. 'The same, my lord, and your poor servant 
ever. 
_Ham. Sir, my good friend; I'll change that name 
with you.” 
And what make you from Wittenberg, Horatio 1 — 
Marcellus ? 
Mar. My good lord, — 
Ham. 1 am very glad to see you. — Good even, 
sir.?? — 
But what, in faith, make you from Wittenberg ? 
Hor. A truant disposition, good my lord. 
Ham. I would not hear your enemy say so; 
Nor shall you do mine ear that violence, 
To make it truster of your own report 
Against yourself: I know you are no truant. 
But what is your affair in Elsinore ? 
We'll teach you to drink deep, ere you depart. 
Hor. My lord, I came to see your father’s funeral. 


’ 
in the most natural language, equally remote from the ink-horn and 
the plough. — CoLERIDGE. H. 

21 As if he had said, — No, you are not my poor servant: we 
are friends ; that is the style I will exchange with you. Kemble 
gave the true sense by laying the Epa thas: “ Sir, my good 
Sriend ; Vl change that name with you.’ H. 

22 The words, Good even, sir, are evidently addressed to Ber- 
nardo, whom Hainlet has not pera known ; but as he now meets 
him in company with old acquaintances, like a true gentleman, as 
he is, he gives him a salutation of kindness. Some editors have 
changed even to morning, because Marcellus has said before of 
Hamlet, — “I this morning know where we shall find him.” It 
needs but be remembered that good even was the common saluta- 
tion after noon. —“ What make you?” in the preceding speech, 
is the old language for, “ What do you?” H. 


214 HAMLET, ACT I. 


Ham. J pray thee, do not mock me, fellow student; 
I think it was to see my mother’s wedding. 

for. Indeed, my lord, it follow’d hard upon. 

Ham. feed ike thrift, Horatio! the ss bak’d 

meats ” 
Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables. 
Would I had met my dearest foe in heaven,”* 
Or ever I had seen that day, Horatio ! — 
My father,— methinks, I see my father. 

Hor. O! where, my lord? 

Ham. In my mind’s eye, Horatio. 

Hor. I saw him once; he was a goodly king. 

Ham. He was a man, take him for all in all,”® 
I shall not look upon his like again. 

Hor. My lord, I think I saw him yesternight. 

Ham. Saw who ?”° 

Hor. My lord, the king your father. 

Ham. Vhe king my father ? 

Hor. Season your admiration for a while 
With an attent ear, till I may deliver, 
Ypon the witness of these gentlemen, 

‘This marvel to you. 


23 Scott, in The Bride of Lammermoor, has made the readers 
of romance familiar with the old custom of “ funeral bak’d meats,” 
which was kept up in Scotland till a recent period. H. 

24 Caldecott has shown that in Shakespeare’s time dearest was 
applied to any person or thing that excites the liveliest interest 
whether of love or hate., See Twelfth Night, Act vy. sc. 1, note 3. 

H. 

25 Some would read this as if it were pointed thus: “ He was 
a man: take him for all in all,” &c.; laying marked stress on man, 
as if it were meant to intimate a correction of Horatio’s * goodly 
king.” There is, we suspect, no likelihood that the Poet had any 
such thought, as there is no reason why he should have had. 

H.. 

26 In colloquial !anguage, it was common, as indeed it still is, 
thus to use the nominative where strict grammar would require the 
objective. Modern editions embellish the two words with various 
pointing; as thus: “Saw! who?” or thus; “Saw? who?” 

; H. 


— 


SC. IL. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 215 


Ham. For God’s love, let me hear. 
Hor. Two nights together had these gentlemen, 


Marcellus and Bernardo, on their watch, P 


In the dead vast and middle of the night,’ 
Been thus encounter’d. A figure like your father, 
Arm’d at all points, exactly, cap-a-pé,”* 
Appears before them, and with solemn march 
Goes slow and stately by them: thrice he walk’d 
By their oppress’d and fear-surprised eyes, 
Within his truncheon’s length; whilst they, distill’d 
Almost to jelly with the act of fear,” 
Stand dumb, and speak not to him. This to me 
In dreadful secrecy impart they did ; 
And I with them the third night kept the watch ; 
Where, as they had deliver’d, both in time, 
Form of the thing, each word made true and good, 
The apparition comes: I knew your father ; 
These hands are not more like. 
Ham. But where was this ? 
Hor. My lord, upon the platform where we 
watch’d. 
Ham. Did you not speak to it? 
For. My lord, I did; 


27 So the quarto of 1603; the other old copies have wast and 
waste instead of vast. Modern editions have differed whether it 
should be waste or waist, the latter meaning middle. We have 
no doubt that rust is the right word. Of course it means void or 
vacancy. See The Tempest, Act i. se. 2, note 32; also, The 
Winter’s Tale, Act i. sc. 1, note 1; and Pericles, Act iil. se. id 


note |. H. 
28 So the folio; the first quarto, “ Armed ¢o point ;” the other 
quartos, “ Armed at point.” H 


29 So all the quartos ; the folio has bestill’d instead of distill’d. 
Of course to distill is to fall in drops, to melt; so that distill’d is 
a very natural and fit expression for the cold sweat caused by in- 
tense fear. Mr. Collier finds bechill’d in his famous second folio, 
and is greatly delighted with it, as usual. The idea of human 
podies being chilled or frozen to a jelly is rather queer. H. 


Ld . Ai. hd aC) a is: A 
a ms ‘ ns Th ¢ 4 nt ri" 


‘Sy E , J 


216 . eae ACT I. 


But answer made it none: yet once, methought, 
It lifted up its head, and did address 
Itself, to motion, like as it would speak ; 
But even then the morning cock crew loud, 
And.-at the sound it shrunk in haste away, 
And vanish’d from our sight.?? woe 
Ham. "Tis very strange. 
flor. As I do live, my honour’d lord, ’tis true ; 
And we did think it writ down in our duty, 
To let you know of it. 
Ham. Indeed, indeed, sirs, but this troubles me. 
Hold you the watch to-night ? 


Ail. We do, my lord. 
Ham. Arm’d, say you? 

All. Arm’d, my lord. . 
fam. From top to toe? 


All. My lord, from head to foot. 

Ham. Then, saw you not his face? 

Hor. O, yes, my lord! he wore his beaver up.” 
Ham. What! look’d he frowningly ? 


Hor. A countenance more 
In sorrow than in anger. | 

Ham. Pale, or red? , 

Hor. Nay, very pale. 

Tam. And fix’d his eyes upon you 1? 


30 It is a most inimitable circumstance in Shakespeare so to 
have managed this popular idea, as to make the Ghost, which has’ 
been so long obstinately silent, and of course must be dismissed 
by the morning, begin or pattie prepare to speak, and to be inter- 
rupted at the very critical time of the crowing of a cock. An- 
other poet, according to custom, would have “suitor his ghost 
tamely to vanish, without contriving this start, which is like a start 
of guilt: to say notbing of the aggrav ation of the futare suspense 
occasioned by this preparation to speak, and to impart some mys- 
terious secret. Less would have been expected if nothing had 
been promised. —T. Warton. 

31 That part of the helmet which may be lifted up. 


* A ee : ‘ a 
oer ere} 4 
a , : ; 


SC. IL. PRINCE OF DENMARK. > 217 


Hor. Most constantly. | 
Ham. — I would I had been there. 
Hor. Wt would have much amaz’d you. 
Ham. Very like, very like. Stay’d it long? 
Hor. While one with moderate haste might tell 
a hundred. 
Mar. Ber. Wonger, longer. 
- Hor. Not when I saw’t. 
Ham. His beard was grizzl’d? no? 
Hor. It was, as I have seen it in his life, 
A sable: silver’d. 


Ham. I will watch to-night : 
Perchance, ‘twill walk again. 
For. I warrant it will. 


_ Ham. If it assume my noble father’s person, 
I'll speak to it, though hell itself should gape, 
And bid me hold my peace. I pray you all, 
If you have hitherto conceal’d this sight, 
Let it be tenable in your silence still ; *° 
And whatsoever else shall hap to-night, 
Give it an understanding, but no tongue: 
I will requite your loves. So, fare you well: 
Upon the platform, ’twixt eleven and twelve, 
[Jl visit you. 
All. Our duty to your honour. 
Ham. Your loves, as mine to you: Farewell. — 
[Exeunt all but HamMurr. 
My father’s spirit in arms! all is not well; 
I doubt some foul play: would the night were come ! 
Till then sit still, my soul. Foul deeds will rise, 


Though all the earth o’erwhelm them, to men’s eyes. 
[ Exit. 


32 The quarto of 1603 reads tenible. The other quartos tenable. 
The folio of 1623 treble. 


VOL. X. 19 


218 HAMLET, ACT I. 


SCENE III. A Room in Pouonws’ House. 


. Enter LAERTES and OPHELIA. 


Laer. My necessaries are embark’d; farewell: 
And, sister, as the winds give benefit, 
And convoy is assistant, do not sleep, 
But let me hear from you. 
Oph. Do you doubt that ? 
Laer, For Hamlet, and the trifling of his favour, 
Hold it a fashion, and a toy in blood; 
A violet in the youth of primy nature, 
Forward, not permanent, sweet, not lasting? 
The perfume and Supa Ree of a minute ;' 
No more. 
Oph. No more but so? 
Laer. Think it no more: 
For nature, crescent, does not grow alone 
In thews,” and bulk ; but, as this temple waxes, 
The inward service of the mind and soul 
Grows wide withal. | Perhaps he loves you now; 
And now no soil nor cautel doth besmirch® 
The virtue of his will: but you must fear ; 
His greatness weigh’d, his will is not his own; 
For he himself is subject to his birth :4 


1 This is the reading of the quartos. The folio omits perfume 
and. It is plain that mecha is necessary to exemplify the idea 
of sweet, not lasting. ‘The suppliance of a minute” should seem 
to mean supplying or enduring only that short space of time; as 
transitory and evanescent. The simile is eminently beautiful. 

*? That is, sinews and muscular strength. See the Second Part 
of King Henry IV., Act iii. sc. 2, note 12. 

3 Cautel is cautious cireumspection, subtlety, or deceit. Min- 
sheu explains it, “a crafty way to deceive.” See Coriolanus, Act 
v. sc. 1, note 3. — Besmirch is besmear, or sully. 

4 This line is found only in the folio. —«“This scene,” says 
Coleridge, “must be regarded as ¢ie of Shakespeare’s lyric 


SC. TII. PRINCE OF DENMARK. Q19 


He may not, as unvalued persons do, 

Carve for himself; for on his choice depends 

The safety and health of the whole state ;° 

And therefore must his choice be circumscrib’d 

Unto the voice and yielding of that body, 

Whereof he is the head. Then, if he says he loves 
you, | 

It fits your wisdom so far to believe it, 

As he in his particular act and place ° 

May give his saying deed; which is no further 

Than the main voice of Denmark goes withal. 

Then, weigh what loss your honour may sustain, 

If with too credent ear you list his songs,’ 

Or lose your heart, or your chaste treasure open 

To his unmaster’d importunity. 

Fear it, Ophelia, fear it, my dear sister 5 

And keep you in the rear of your affection, 

Out of the shot and danger of desire. 

The chariest maid is prodigal enough, 

If she unmask her beauty to the moon. 

Virtue itself ’scapes not calumnious strokes : 

The canker galls, the infants of the spring, 


movements in tne play, and the skill with which it is interwoven 
with the dramatic parts is peculiarly an excellence with our Poet. 
You experience the sensation of a pause, without the sense of a stop. 
You will observe, in Ophelia’s short and general answer to the 
long speech of Laertes, the natural carelessness of innocence, 
which cannot think such a code of cautions and prudences neces- 
sary to its own preservation.” H. 

5 Thus the quartos ; the folio has sanctity instead of safety, 
supposing the metre defective. But safety is used as a trisyllable 
by Spenser and others. Thus Hall in his first Satire : 


« Nor fish can dive so deep in yielding sea, 
Though Thetis self should swear her safety.” 


6 The folio has “peculiar sect and force” instead of “ partice 
ular act and place.” H. 
7 If with too credulous ear you listen to his songs. 


92) HAMLET, ACT I. 


Too oft before their buttons be disclos’d ; 
And in the morn and liquid dew of youth 
Contagious blastments are most imminent. 
Be wary, then; best safety lies in fear: 
Youth to itself rebels, though none else near. 
Oph. I shall th’ effect of this good lesson keep, 
As watchman to my heart. But, good my brother 
Do not, as some ungracious pastors do, — 
Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven, 
Whilst, like a puff’d and reckless libertine, 
Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads, 
And recks not his own read. 
Laer. O! fear me not. 
I stay too long ;—but here my father comes. 


Enter Poutontius. 


A double blessing is a double grace ; 
Occasion smiles upon a second leave. 
Pol. Yet here, Laertes? aboard, aboard, for 
shame ! 
The wind sits in the shoulder of your sail, 
And you are stay’d for. There;.my blessing with 
you ; 
[Laying his Hand on Larrtes’ Head. 
And these few precepts in thy memory 
Look thou character? Give thy thoughts no 
tongue, 
Nor any unproportion’d thought his act. 
Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar :° 


8 That is, rezards not his own lesson. Read was often thus 
used as a pabatentive: for the thing read. H. 

9. That is, mark, imprint, strongly infix, 

10 Vulgar is Ars used in its old sense of common. —In the 
second fie below, divers modern editions have hooks instead of 
hoops, the reading on all the old copies. It is not easy to see what 
is gained by the unauthorized change. H. 


a 


amie nad eal 
| 


sc. III. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 221 


The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried, 
Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel ; 
But do not dull thy palm" with entertainment 
Of each new-hatch’d, unfledg’d comrade. Beware 
Of entrance to a quarrel; but, being in, 
Bear ’t, that th’ opposed may beware of thee. 
Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice: 
Take each man’s censure,’* but reserve thy judg- 
ment. 
Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy, 
But not express’d in fancy ; rich, not gaudy: 
For the apparel oft proclaims the man ; 
And they in France, of the best rank and station, 
Are most select and generous, chief in that.'* 
Neither a borrower nor a lender be: 
For loan oft loses both itself and friend 3; 
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry. 
This above all,—to thine ownself be true ; 
And it must follow, as the night the day, 
Thou canst not then be false to any man. 
Farewell: my blessing season this in thee!" 
Laer. Most humbly do I take my leave, my lord. 
Pol. 'The time invites you: go; your servants 
tend. 
Laer. Farewell, Ophelia; and remember well 
What I have said to you. 


11 «Do not blunt thy feeling by taking every new acquaintance 
by the hand, or by admitting ara to the intimacy of a friend.” 


Aa Censure was continually used for opinion. H. 
13 "Ihe old copies read, « Are of a most select,” &c., to the 
destruction of boih measure and sense. H. 


M4 « To season, for to infuse,” says Warburton. ‘It is more 
than to infuse, it is to infix in such a manner that it may never 
wear out,” says Johnson. But hear one of the Poet’s contempo- 


_raries : “ J'o season, to temper wisely, to make more pleasant and 


acceptable.’ — BarrrT. This is the sense required, and is a bet 
ter commentary than the conjectures of the learned critics, 


19 * 


\ 


2:22 HAMLET, ACT I. 


Oph. ‘ "Tis in my memory lock’d, 
And you yourself shall keep the key of it. 
Laer. Farewell. [Exit LaErRTEs, 


Pol. What is’t, Ophelia, he hath said to you? 

Oph. So please you, something touching the lord 
Hamlet. 

Pol. Marry, well bethought : 

"Tis told me, he hath yery oft of late 

Given private time to you; and you yourself 

Have of your audience been most free and boun- 

teous. 

If it be so, (as so ’tis put on me, 

And that in way of caution, ) I must tell you, 

You do not understand yourself so clearly, 

As it behoves my daughter, and your honour. 

What is between you? give me up the truth. 

Oph. He hath, my lord, of late, made many tenders 

Of his affection to me. 

Pol. Affection? pooh! you speak like a green 
girl, 

Unsifted in such perilous circumstance. 

Do you believe his tenders, as you call them? 
Oph. I do not know, my lord, what I should think. 
Pol. Marry, Pll teach you: think yourself a baby ; 

That you have ta’en these tenders for true pay, 

Which are not sterling. Tender yourself more 

dearly ; 

Or (not to crack the wind ef the poor phrase, 

Wronging it thus) you'll tender me a fool.’® 


15 Instead of Wronging. the folio has Roaming ; an evident roam- 
ing from sense. Mr. Collier some years ago conjectured running 
to be the right word, and has since found running in his second 
folio; a coincidence that may be read ruuning. ‘The quartos have 
Wrong, which has been changed rightly, we doubt not, to Wrong- 
ing. It should be noted that thus refers to what goes before, not 
what follows ; as if he had said, « and so wrong it,” or, “thereby 


eS "= at ie Ge a » _— 
me t he ¥ - 
if rt 
ag , 
| 
a. 


SC. III. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 293 


Oph. My lord, he hath importun’d me with love, 
In honourable fashion. : 
Pol. Ay, fashion you may call it: go to, go to. 
Oph. And hath given countenance to his speech, 
my lord, 
With almost all the holy vows of heaven."® 
Pol. Ay, springes to catch woodcocks.'7 I do 
know, 
When the blood burns, how prodigal the soul 
Lends the tongue vows: these blazes, daughter, 
Giving more light than heat, — extinct in both, 
Even in their promise, as it is a-making, — 
You must not take for fire. From this time, daugh- 
ter;/° 
Be somewhat scanter of your maiden presence ; 
Set your entreatments at a higher rate, 
Than a command to parley.’® For lord Hamlet, 
Believe so much in him, that he is young ; 
And with a larger tether may he walk,” 
Than may be given you. In few, Ophelia, 
Do not believe his vows; for they are brokers, 
Not of that dye which their investments show, 


doing it wrong.” Of course he is comparing the phrase to a poor 
nag, which, if put to too hard a strain, will be wind-broken. 


H. 
16 The folio gives this line thus: “ With all the vows of heav- 
en.” H. 


17 This was a proverbial phrase. There is a collection of epi- 
grams under that title: the woodcock being accounted a witless 
bird, from a vulgar notion that it had no brains. “Springes to 
catch woodcocks” means ‘arts to entrap simplicity.” 

18 Duughter is found only in the folio, which misprints for in- 
stead of from. Daughter helps both the measure and the sense 5 
and as fire was then going out of use as a dissyllable, we have 
no doubt the Poet supplied the word. H. 

19 « Be more difficult of access, and Jet the swits to you for that 
purpose be of higher respect, than a command to parley.” 

20 That is, with a longer line ; a horse, fastened by a string to a 
stake, is tethered. 


a: 2 
a ee 


994 HAMLET, ACT Ie 


But mere implorators of unholy suits, 
Breathing like sanctified and pious bawds,”! 
The better to beguile. This is for all, — 
I would not, in plain terms, from this time forth, 
Have you so slander any moment’s leisure, 
As to give words or talk with the lord Hamlet. 
Look to’t, I charge you; come your ways.” 
Oph. I shall obey, my lord. [ Exeunt. 


SCENE IV. The Platform. . 


Enter Hamuet, Horatio, and Marce.wvs. 


Ham. The air bites shrewdly ; it is very cold. . 
Hor. It is a nipping and an eager air.! 


21 The old copies have bonds instead of bawds. Theobald 
conjectured the latter to be the right word. The use of broker's, 
which formerly meant the same as bawd or pander, favours the 
change. It is not easy to see what bonds can have to do with 
the passage. See Troilus and Cressida, Act v. se. 11, note 3. 

H. 

*2 I do not believe that in this or any other of the foregoing 
speeches of Polonius, Shakespeare meant to bring out the senility 
or weakness of that personage’s mind. In the great ever-recur- 
ring dangers and duties of life, where to distinguish the fit objects 
for the application of the maxims collected by the experience of 
a long life, requires no fineness of tact, as in the admonitions to 
his son and daughter, Polonius is uniformly made respectable. It 
is to Hamlet that Polonius is, and is meant to be, contemptible, 
because, in inwardness and uncontrollable activity of movement, 
Hamlet’s mind is the logical contrary to that of Polonius; and 
besides, Hamlet dislikes the man as false to his true allegiance in 
the matter of the succession to the crown. —CoLERIDGE. H. 

1 Eager was used in the sense of the French aigre, sharp, biting. 
— “The unimportant conversation,” says Coleridge, “ with which 
this scene opens, is a proof of Shakespeare’s minute knowledge 
of human nature. It is a well-established fact, that on the brink 
of any serious enterprise, or event of moment, men almost inva- 
riably endeavour to elude the pressure of their own thoughts by 
turning aside to trivial objects and familiar cireumstanees. Thus 
the dialogue on the platform begins with remarks on the coldness 


“a 


Pa’ 


y, 
ww 
SC. IV. _ PRINCE OF DENMARK. 225 
Ham. What hour now ? 
Hor. I think it lacks of twelve. 


Mar. No, it is struck. 
HIor. Indeed? I heard it not: it then draws near 
the season, 
Wherein the spirit held his wont to walk. 
[A Flourish of Trumpets, and Ordnance shot 
. off, within. 
What does this mean, my lord? _ 
“ Ham. The king doth wake to-night, and takes his 
rouse,” 
Keeps wassel, and the swaggering up-spring reels ; 
And, as he drains his draughts of Rhenish down, 
The kettle-drum and trumpet thus bray out 
The triumph of his pledge. 
Hor. Is it a custom ? 


of the air, and inquiries, obliquely connected indeed with the ex- 
pected hour of visitation, but thrown out in a seeming vacuity of 
topics, as to the striking of the clock and so forth. The same 
desire to escape from the impending thought is earried on in Ham- 
let’s account of, and moralizing on, the Danish custom of wassail- 
ing : he runs off from the particular to the universal, and, in his 
repugnance to personal and individual concerns, escapes, as it 
were, from himself in generalisations, and smothers the impatience 
and uneasy féelings of the moment in abstract reasoning. Besides 
this, another purpose is answered ; — for, by thus entangling the 


+ attention of the audience in the nice distinctions and parenthetical 


sentences of this speech of Hamlet, Shakespeare takes them com- 
pletely by surprisé on the appearance of the Ghost, which comes 
upon them in all the suddenness of its visionary character. In- 
deed, no modern writer would have dared, like Shakespeare, to 
have preceded this last visitation by two distinet appearances ; or 
could have contrived that the third should rise upon the former two 
_11 impressiveness and solemnity of interest.’ H. 

* ? To wake is to hold a late revel or debauch. — Rouse is the 
same as curouse. See sc. 2, note 15. — Wassel originally meant 
a drinking to one’s health; from wes heel, health be to you: 
hence it came to be used for any festivity of the bottle and the 
bowl. See Love’s Labour’s Lost, Act v. se. 2, note 19; and 
Macbeth, Act i. sc. 7, note 10. — Up-spring probably means the 
same as upstart, , H. 

15 


226 HAMLET, | van ACT I: 
Flam. Ay, marry, is’t: 

But to. my mind —though I am native here, 

And to the manner born —it is a custom: 

More honour’d in the breach, than the observance. ° : 

This heavy-headed revel, east and west,° 

‘Makes us traduc’d and tax’d of other nations: — 1 

They clepe us drunkards,* and with swinish phrase 

Soil our addition ;° and, indeed, it takes : 

From our achievements, though perform’d at height, 

The pith and marrow of our attribute. 

So, oft it chances in particular men, 

That, for some vicious mole of nature in them, 

As, in their birth, (wherein they are not culty, 

Since nature#cannot choose his origin 3) 

By their o’ergrowth of some complexion," 

Oft breaking down the pales and forts of reason ; 

Or by some habit, that too much o’er-leavens 

The form of plausive manners ; —.that these men, — 

Carrying, I say, the stamp of one defect, 

Being nature’s livery, or fortune’s star,’ — 

Their virtues else, be they as pure as grace, 


3 This and the following twenty-one lines are wanting in the 
folio. They had probably been omitted in representation, lest 
they should give offence to Anne of Denmark. 

4 Clepe is call; from the Saxon clypian. The Danes were in- 
deed proverbial as drunkards, and well they might be, according 
to the accounts of the time. Heywood, in his Philocothonista, or 
The Drunkard Opened, 1635, speaking of what he calls the vi- 
nosity of nations, says of the Danes, that they have made a pro- 
fession thereof from antiquity, and are the first upon record « that 
brought their wassel bowls and elbowe deepe healthes into this 
Jand.” Roger Ascham, in one of his Letters, says, «The Em 
peror of Germany, who had his head in the glass five times as 
long as any of us, never drank Jess than a good quart at once of 
Rhen‘sh wine.” 

8 That is, characterize us by a swinish epithet. 

6 By complexion was meant the affections of the body. 

7 hat is, the influence of the planet supposed to govern our 
birth. 


SC. IV. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 227 


As infinite as man may undergo, 

Shall in the general censure take corruption 
From that particular fault: the dram of base 
T¥eth all the noble substance often dout,® 

To his own scandal.° 7 


Enter the Ghost. 


Hor. Look, my lord! it comes: 
Ham. Angels and ministers of grace, defend us! 


Be thou a spirit of health, or goblin damn’d; 


Bring with thee airs from heaven, or blasts from hell; 
Be thy intents wicked or charitable ; 


8 To dout is todo out, destroy, or extinguish. The word is still 
so used in some partsof England. As already stated, the passage 
is found only in the quartos, which have “dram of eale” for 
“dram of base,” and of a doubt instead of often dout. Ill is 
preferred by some, and baleby others, as corrections of eale ; we 
prefer base as being the proper antithesis of noble. Doubt is also 
preferred by some, as meauing to bring into doubt, or throw doubt 
upon; but no instance is produced of the word so used. H. 

® In addition to all the other excellences of Hamlet’s speech 
concerning the wassel-music,—so finely revealing the predom- 
inant idealism, the ratiocinative meditativeness of his character, — 
it has the advantage of giving nature and probability to the im- 
passioned continuity of the speech instantly directed to the Ghost. 
The momentum had been given to his mental activity; the full 
current of the thoughts and words had set in; and the very for- 
getfulness, in the fervour of his argumentation, of the purpose for 
which he was there, aided in preventing the appearance from be- 
numbing the mind. Consequently, it acted as a new impulse, — 
a sudden stroke which increased the velocity of the body already 
in motion, whilst it altered the direction. The co-presence of Ho- 
ratio and Marcellus is most judiciously contrived ; for it renders 
the courage of Hamlet, and his impetuous eloquence, perfectly 
intelligible. The knowledge — the sensation — of human auditors 
acts as a support and a stimulation a tergo,.while the front of the 
mind, the Whole consciousness of the speaker, is filled, yea, ab- 
sorbed, by the apparition. Add, too, that the apparition itself has, 
by its previous appearances, been brought nearer to a thing of 
this world. This accrescence of objectivity in a ghost that yet 
retains all its ghostly attributes and fearful subjectivity, is truly 
wonderful. — CoLERIDGE. H, 


298 HAMLET, ACT I 


Thou com’st in such a questionable shape,” 
That I will speak to thee. T’ll call thee, Hamlet, 
King, father, royal Dane: O, answer me! 
Let me not burst in ignorance; but tell, 
Why thy canoniz’d bones, hearsed in death, 
Have burst their cerements! why the sepulchre, 
Wherein we saw thee quietly in-urn’d,” 
Hath op’d his ponderous and marble jaws, 
To cast thee up again! What may this mean, 
That thou, dead corse, again, in complete steel, . 
Revisit’st thus the glimpses of the moon, 
Making night hideous; and we fools of nature, 
So horridly to shake our disposition, 
With thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls 1 
Say, why i is this? wherefore? what should we do? 
[The Ghost beckons HAMLET. 
* Hor. It beckons you to go,away with it, - 
As if it some impartment did desire 
To you alone. 
Mar. Look, with what courteous action 
It waves you to a more removed ground: 
But do not go with it. ; | 
Hor. No, by no means. gy - 
Ham. It will not speak; then, will I follow it. 
Hor. Do not, my lord. 
Ham. Why, what should be the fear? 
I do not set my life at a pin’s fee ; 
And, for my soul, what can it do to that, 
’ 


10 That is, a shape to be questioned or talked with, a shape i in- 
viting conversation. Such was the more common meaning of 


questionable i in the Poet’s time. ‘ H. 
11 So the folio ; all the quartos have interr’d instead of in-urn’d. 
H. 


12 Tt appears from Olaus Wormius that it was the custom to 
bury the Danish kings in their armour. 


SC. IV. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 229 


Being a thing immortal as itself 2 
It waves me forth again: —T'll follow it. 
Hor. What if it tempt you toward the flood, my 
lord, 
Or to the dreadful summit of the cliff, 
That beetles** o’er his base into the sea, 
And there assume some other horrible form, 
Which might deprive your sovereignty of rea- 
son,'* 
And draw you into madness? think of it: 
The very place puts toys of desperation, 
Without more motive, into every brain, 
That looks so many fathoms to the sea, 
And hears it roar beneath. 
Ham. It waves me still. —Go on, I’ll follow thee. 
Mar. You shall not go, my lord. 


| Ham. Hold off your hands. 
for. Be rul’d: you shall not go. 
Ham. My fate cries out, 


And makes each petty artery in this body 
As hardy as the Nemean lion’s nerve. — 
| Ms [ Ghost beckons. 
Still am I call’d.—Unhand me, gentlemen ; — 
| [Breaking from them. 


13 That is, overhangs his base. Thus in Sidney’s Arcadia: 
“Hills lift up their beetle*brows, as if they would overlooke the 
pleasantnesse of their under prospect.” The verb to beetle is ap- 
parently of Shakespeare’s creation, 

14To “deprive your sovereignty of reason,” signifies to take 
from you the command of reason. We have similar instances of 
raising the idea of virtues or qualities by giving them rank, in Ban- 
quo’s “royalty of nature ;” and even in this play we have “no- 
bility of loye,” and “dignity of love.” Deprive was ofien thus 
used in the sense of take away. — Toys, second line after, means 
whims. — The last four lines of this speech are not in the folio. 

H. 


VOL. X. 20 


230 HAMLET, | - ACT L 


By Heaven, I'll make a ghost of him that lets 
‘me: 158% 
I say, away !— Go on, I'll follow thee. 
[Exeunt Ghost and HAMLET. 
Hor. He waxes desperate with imagination. 
Mar. Let’s follow; ’tis not fit thus to obey him. 
Hor. Have after. — To what issue will this come ? 
Mar. Something is rotten in the state of Den- 
mark. 
Hor. Heaven will direct it.’ 
Mar. Nay, let’s follow him. 
[ Exeunt. 


SCENE V. 


A more remote Part of the Platform. 


Enter the Ghost and HamuEt. 


Ham. Whither wilt thou lead me? speak, I'll go 
no further. 
Ghost. Mark me.~ 
fam. T will. 
Ghost. My hour is almost come, 
When I to sulphurous and tormenting flames 
Must render up myself. 
Ham. Alas, poor pee 
Ghost. Pity me not ; but lend thy serious hearing 
To what I shall unfold. 
| Ham. - Speak ; I am bound to hear. 
Ghost. So art thou to revenge, when thou shalt 
hear. 


5 To let, in old language, is to hinder, or oneal 
16 ‘Marcellis ‘answers Horatio’s question, “To what issue will 
this come?” and Horatio also answers it himself with pious resig- 
nation, “ Heaven will direct it.” 


SC. V. PRINCE UF DENMARK. 231 


Han... What ? 

Ghost. I am thy father’s spirit 5 
Doom’d for a certain term to walk the night, 
And for the day confin’d to fast in fires,’ 
‘Till the foul crimes, done in my days of nature, 
Are burnt and purg’d away.” But that I am forbid 
To tell the secrets of my prison house, 
I could a tale unfold, whose lightest word 
Would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood, 
Make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres, 
Thy knotted and combined locks to part, 
And each particular hair to stand on end, 
Like quills upon the fretful porcupine :° 
But this eternal blazon must not be | 
To ears of flesh and blood. — List, list, O list !— 
If thou didst ever thy dear father love,— _ 

Ham. O God! 

Ghost. Revenge his foul.and most unnatural 

murder. 

Ham. Murder ? r 

Ghost. Murder most foul, as in the best it is 5 
But this most foul, strange, and unnatural. 

' Ham. Haste me to know’t; that I, with wings 
as swift 


1 The spirit being supposed to feel the same desires and appe- 
tites as when clothed in the flesh, the pains and punishments prom- 
ised by the ancient moral teachers are often of a sensual nature 
Chaucer in the Persones Tale says, “ The misese of hell shall be 
in defaute of mete and drinke.” So, too, in The Wyll of the 
Devyll: “Thou shalt lye in frost and fire, with sicknes and hun- 
ger.” — Heath proposed “ lasting fires,’ and such is the change 
in Collier’s second folio. H. 

2 Gawin Douglas really changes the Platonic hell into “the 
punytion of the saulis in purgatory.” “Itis a nedeful thyng to 
suffer paines and torment;—sum in the wyndis, sum under the wat- 
ter, and in the fire uther sum: thus the mony vices contrakkit in 
the corpis be done away and purgit.” 

3 Fretful is the reading of the folio; the quartos read fearful. 


1 Met eee 


Roe. HAMLET, ACT I. 


As meditation or the thoughts of love, 
_May sweep to my revenge. 

Ghost. I find thee ‘apt ; 
And duller should’st thou be than the fat weed 
That rots itself in ease on Lethe wharf,’ 


Would’st thou not stir in this. Now, Hamlet, hear: 


"Tis given out, that sleeping in mine orchard, 
A serpent stung me; so the whole ear of Denmark 
Is by a forged process of my death 
Rankly abus’d: but know, thou noble youth, 
The serpent that did sting thy father’s life 
Now wears his crown. 

fam. O, my prophetic soul! my uncle! 

Ghost. Ay, that incestuous, that adulterate ‘beast, 
With witchcraft of his wit, with traitorous gifts, 
(O, wicked wit and gifts, that have the power 
So to seduce !) won to his shameful lust 
The will of my most seeming-virtuous queen. 
O, Hamlet! what a falling-off was there ! 
From me, whose love was of that dignity, 
That it went hand in hand even with the vow 
I made to her in marriage; and to decline 
Upon a wretch, whose natural gifts were poor 
To those of mine ! 
But virtue, as it never will be mov’d, 
Though: lewdness court it in a shape of heaven 3 
So lust, though to a radiant angel link’d, 
Will sate itself in a celestial bed, 


4 So reads the folio; the quartos all have roots instead of rots. 
Most editors prefer roots ; but, surely, rots is much more conso- 
nant to the sense of the passage. To speak of a thing as rotting 
itse/f' is not indeed common ; but we have it in Antony and Cleo- 
patra, thus: 


“Like a vagabond flag upon the stream, 
- Go to and back, lackeying the varying ‘de, 
To rot itself with motion.” H. 


a 


SC. V. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 233 


And prey on garbage. 

But, soft! methinks, I scent the morning air: 
Brief let me be.—Sleeping within mine orchard, 
My custom always in the afternoon,’ 

Wpon'my secure hour thy uncle stole, 

With juice of cursed hebenon in a phial, 

And in the porches of mine ears did pour 

The leperous distilment ;° whose effect 

Holds such an enmity with blood of man, 

That, swift as quicksilver, it courses through 
The‘natural gates and alleys of the body ; 

And with a sudden vigour it doth posset 

And curd, like eager droppings into milk,’ 

The thin and wholesome blood: so did it mine 3 
And a most instant tetter bark’d about,°® 


_ Most lazar-like, with vile and loathsome crust, 


All my smooth body. 
Thus was I, sleeping, by a brother’s hand, 


5 So the folio and the quarto of 1603; the other quartos, “of 
the afternoon.”’ — Secure, in the next line, is a Latinism, securus, 
quiet, unguarded. H. 

6 Hebenon is probably derived from henbane, the oil of which, 
according to Pliny, dropped into the ears, disturbs the brain. and 
there is sufficient evidence that it was beld poisonous. So in An- 
ton’s Satires, 1606 : “The poison’d henbane,-whose cold juice doth 
kill.” And Drayton, in his Barons’ Wars: « The poisoning hen- 
bane and the mandrake dread.”’_ It is, however, possible that poi- 
sonous qualities may have been ascribed to ebony ;* called ebene, 
and ebeno, by old English writers. So Marlow, in his Jew of 
Malta, speaking of noxious things: “The blood of Hydra, Ler- 
na’s bane, the juyce of hebon, and cocytus breath.”?” The French 
word hebenin, which would be applied to any thing made from 
ebony, comes indeed very close to the hebenon of Shakespeare. 

7 In the preceding scene, note 1, we have had eager in the sense 
of sharp, biting. Baret explains, “« Eger, sower, sharp, acidus, 
oigre.” « Eager droppings”’ are drops of acid. H. 

8 So all the quartos ; the folio has buk’d instead of bark’d; a 
misprint, probably, but preferred by some editors. — Instant 
seems to be here used in its Latin sense; pressing, urgent, harass 
ing. H. 


20 * 


234 HAMLET, ACT If. 


Of life, of crown, of queen, at once despatch’d ; ® 

Cut off even.in the blossoms of my sin, 

~ Unhousel’d, disappointed, unanel’d ;?° 

No reckoning made, but sent to my account 

_ With all my imperfections on my head. . 

Ham. O, horrible! O, horrible! most horrible !? 

Ghost. If thou hast nature in thee, bear it not; 

Let not the royal bed of Denmark be 

A couch for luxury and damned incest. P 

But, howsoever thou pursuest this act, 

Taint not thy mind, nor let thy soul contrive ¢ 

Against thy ‘mother aught: leave her to Heaven, 

And to those thorns that in her bosom lodge, 

To prick and sting her. Fare thee well at once! 

The glow-worm shows the matin to be near, 

And ’gins to pale his uneffectual fire :!? 

Adieu, adieu! Hamlet, remember me. [ Evit. 


® The first quarto has depriv’d, and Mr. Collier’s second folio, 
despoil’d. Despatch’d is better than either, because to the sense 
of deprivation it adds that of suddenness. ‘See King Richard IL., 
Act v. sc. 4, note 2. H. 

10 -Unhousel’d is without having received the sacrament. Thus 
in Hormanni Vulgaria, 1519: « He is departed without shryfie and 
housyll.” Disappointed is unappointed, unprepared. A man well- 
furnished for an enterprise is said to be well-appointed. Unanel’d 
is without extreme unction. Thus in Cavendish’s Life of Wolsey: 
“Then we began to put him in mind of Christ’s passion ; and sent 
for the abbot of the place to anneal him.” 

1! The old copies print this line as part of the Ghost’s speech. 
Johnson thought it should be transferred to Hamlet, and Garrick 
delivered it as belonging to the Prince, according to the tradition 
of the stage. These authorities and the example of Mr. Verplanck 
have determined us to the change. H. 

? Uneffectual is shining without heat. In the next line, the 
quartos, instead of Hamlet, have adieu repeated the third time. — 
The paper of Blackwood, quoted in our Introduction, bas the fol- 
lowing excellent remarks on the Ghost: “The effect at first pro- 
duced by the apparition is ever afierwards wonderfully sustained 
I do not merely allude to the touches of realization which, in the 
poetry of the scenes, pass away from no memory ;—such as 


—— aw 


ee ; J 
aoauee “ 
SC. V. ~ PRINCE OF DENMARK. Doe 


Ham. O, all you host of heaven! O earth! What 
else 1 . 
And shall I couple hell 1 — O fie !— Hold, hold, my 
heart ! 
And you, my sinews, grow not instant old, 
But bear me stiffly up ! — Remember. thee 2 
Ay, thou poor ghost, while memory holds a seat 
In this distracted globe.'* Remember thee? 
Yea, from the tables of my memory 
Til wipe away all trivial fond records, 
All saws of books, all forms, all pressures past, 
That youth and observation copied there ;"* 
And thy commandment all alone shall live 
Within the book and volume of my brain, 
Unmix’d with a baser matter: yes, by Heaven. 
O, most pernicious woman ! 
O, villain, villain, smiling, damned villain! 
My tables, — meet it is, I set it down, 
That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain ; +e 


«The star,’ —‘ Where now it burns,’ — ‘The sepulchre,’ —‘ The 
complete steel,’ —‘ The glimpses of the moon,’ —‘ Making night 
hideous,’ —‘ Look, how pale he glares,’ — and other wild expres- 
sions, that are like fastenings by which the mind clings to its terror. 
I rather allude to the whole conduct of the Ghost. We ever be- 
hold in it a troubled spirit leaving its place of suffering to revisit 
the life it had left, to direct and command a retribution that must 
be accomplished. He speaks of the pain to which he is gone, but 
that fades away in the purpose of his mission. ‘Pity me not:’ 
He bids Hamlet revenge, though there is not the passion of re- 
venge in his discourse. The penal fires have purified the grosser 


: man. ‘The spectre utters but a moral declaration of guilt, and 
swears its living son to the fulfilment of a righteous vengeance.” 
H. 


13 That is, in this head confused with thought. 

14 « Tubles or books, or registers for mémorie of things,” were 
then used by all ranks, and contained prepared leaves from which 
what was written with a silver style could easily be effaced. 

15 T remember nothing equal to this burst, unless it be the first 
speech of Prometheus, in the Greek drama, after the exit of Vul- 
can and the two Afrites. But Shakespeare alone could have pro 


* e 
236 HAMLET, ACT I 


At least, I am sure it may be so in Denmark: 
[ Writing. 

So, uncle, there you are. Now to my word ; “ 
It is, «Adieu, adieu ! remember me.” 
I have sworn’t. : 

Hor. [| Within.] My lord, my lord! 

Mar. [Within.] Lord Hamlet ! 

Hor. [ Within.| Heaven secure him! 

Mar. | Within.] So be it! 

Hor. [ Within.] Ilo, ho, ho, my lord! 

Ham. Hillo, ho, ho, boy! come, bird, come.'® 


Enter Horatio and MARCELLUS. 


Mar. How is’t, my noble lord ! 
Hor. What news, my lord? 
Ham. O, wonderful ! 
Hor. Good my lord, tell it. 
Ham. No; you'll reveal it. 
Hor. Not I, my lord, by Heaven. 
Mar. Nor I, my lord. 
fam. How say you, then; would heart of man 
once think it ?— 
But you'll be secret ? 


for. Mar. Ay, by Heaven, my lord. 
Ham. 'There’s ne’er a villain dwelling in all Den- 
mark, 


But he’s an arrant knave. 


duced the vow of Hamlet to make his memory a blank of all 
maxims and generalized truths that “observation had copied 
there,” — followed immediately by the speaker noting down the 
generalized fact, “'That one may smile, and smile, and be a vil- 
lain.” — COLERIDGE, H. 
"© This is the call which falconers use to their-hawk in the air 
when they would have him come down to them. — The quartos 
assign some of these speeches differently, and have boy instead of 
bird. We follow the folio here. H. 


Das. 46, allel 


SC. V. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 237 


Hor. There needs no ghost, my lord, come from 
the grave. 
To tell us this. : 
Ham. Why, right; you are i’the right ; 
And so, without more circumstance at all, 
I hold it fit that we shake hands, and part: 
You, as your business and desire shall point you, — 
For every man hath business and desire, 
Such as it is; — and, for mine own poor part, 
Look you, I’ll go pray.” 
Hor. These are but wild and whirling words, my 
lord. 
Ham. \'m sorry they offend you, heartily; yes, 
Faith, heartily. 
Hor. There’s no offence, my lord. 
Ham. Yes, by St. Patrick,'* but there is, Horatio, 
And much offence too. Touching this vision here, 
It is an honest ghost, that let me tell you: 
_ For your desire to know what is between us, 
O’ermaster ’t as you may. And now, good friends, 
As you are friends, scholars, and soldiers, 
Give me one poor request. 
Hor. What is’t, my lord? we will. 
Ham. Never make known what you have seen 
to-night. | 
Hor. Mar. My lord, we will not. 
Ham. Nay, but swear’t. 
Hor. In faith, my lord, not I. 
Mar. Nor I, my lord, in faith. 
Ham. Upon my sword. 
Mar. We have sworn, my lord, already. 


17 The words, Look. you, are found only in the folio. H. 

18 Warburton has ingeniously defended Shakespeare for making 
the Danish prince swear by St. Patrick, by observing that the 
whole northern world had their learning from Ireland. 


238 HAMLET, ACT I. 


Ham. Indeed, upon my sword, indeed. 
Ghost. [Beneath.] Swear. 
Ham. Ha, ha, boy! say’st thou so? art thou 
there, true-penny ? 
Come on, — you hear this fellow in the cellarage, — 
Consent to swear. ‘i 
For. Propose the oath, my lord., 
Ham. Never to speak of this that you have seen, 
Swear by my sword.’® 
Ghost. [Beneath.] Swear. | 
Ham. Hic et ubique! then, we'll shift our 
ground. — 
. Come hither, gentlemen, 
And lay your hands again upon my sword: 
Never to speak of this that you have heard, 
Swear by my sword. 
Ghost. | Beneath.| Swear.” 
Ham. Well said, old mole! canst work i’the earth 
. so fast? 
A worthy pioneer!— Once more remove, good 
friends. 
Hor. O, day and night! but this is wondrous 
strange. 
Ham. And therefore as a stranger give it wel- 
come. 
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, 
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.*! 


1° The custom of swearing by the sword, ar rather by the cross 
at the upper end of it, is very ancient. ‘The name of Jesus was 
net unfrequently inscribed on-the handle. The allusions to this 
custom are very numerous in our old writers. 

*° Here again we follow the folio, with which the first quarto 
agrees. In the other quartos, this speech reads, «Swear by his 
sword ;’’ and the last two lines of the preceding speech are trans- 
posed. In the next line, the folio has ground instead of earth. 

H. 
#1 So read all the quartos ; the folio, “ our philosophy.” The 


sc. V. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 239 


But come ; — 
Here, as before, never, so help you mercy, 
How strange or odd soe’er I bear myself; — 
As I, perchance, hereafter shall think meet 
To put an antic disposition on ;— 
That you, at such times seeing me, never shall, 
With arms encumber’d thus, or this head-shake, 
Or by pronouncing of some doubtful phrase, 
As, “Well, well, we know ;” — or, «We could, an 
if we would;”—or, “If we list to speak ;”’ — or 
«There be, an if they might ;” — 
Or such ambiguous giving-out, to note 
That you know aught of me :—this not to do, 
So grace and mercy at your most need help you. 
Swear. 

Ghost. [Beneath.] Swear. 

Ham. Rest, rest, perturbed spirit! — So, gentle 

men, - 

With all my love I do commend me to you: 
And what so poor a man as Hamlet is 
May do, t’ express his love and friending to you, 
God willing, shall not lack. Let us go in together 
And still your fingers on your lips, I pray. 
The time is out of joint ;—O, cursed spite ! 
That ever I was born to set it right. 
Nay, come; let’s go together.” [ Exeun 


passage has had so long a lease of familiarity, as it stands in the 
text, that it seems best not to change it. Besides, your gives a 
nice characteristic shade of meaning that is lost inour. Of course 
it is not Horatio’s philosophy, but your philosophy, that Hamlet is 
speaking of. H. 

22 This part of the scene after Hamlet’s interview with the Ghos* 
has been ebarged with an improbable eccentricity; But the truth 
is, that after the mind has been stretched beyond its usual pitch 
and tone, it must either sink into exhaustion and inanity, or seek 
relief by change. It is thus well known, that persons conversant 
in deeds of cruelty contrive to escape from conscience by con- 


240 HAMLET, ACT II 


ACT II. 


SCENE I. <A Room in Pouontws’ House. 


Enter Povtonius and Reynaupo. 


Pol. Give him this money, and these notes, Rey- 
naldo. 
Rey. I will, my lord. 
Pol. You shall do marvellous wisely, good Rey- 
naldo, 
Before you visit him, to make inquiry 
Of his behaviour. 
Rey. My lord, I did intend it. 
Pol. Marry, well said; very well said. Look 
you, sir, 
Inquire me first what Danskers' are in Paris; 
And how, and who, what means, and where they 
keep, 


necting something of the ludicrous with them, and by inventing 
grotesque terms and a certain technical phraseology to disguise 
the horror of their practices. Indeed, paradoxical as it may ap- 
pear, the terrible by a law of the human mind always touches on 
the verge of the ludicrous. Both arise from the perception of 
something out of the common order of things, — something, in 
fact, out ‘of its place; and if from this we can abstract the aan 
the uncommonness alone will remain, and the sense of the ridicu- 
Jous be excited. The close alliance of these opposites — they are 
not contraries— appears from the circumstance, that laughter is 
equally the éxpression of extreme anguish and horror as of joy: 
as there are tears of sorrow and tears of joy, so there is a laugh 
of terror and a laugh of merriment. These complex causes will 
naturally have produced in Hamlet the disposition to escape from 
his own feelings of the overwhelming and supernatural by a wild 
transition to the ludicrous, —a sort of cunning bravado, Pe 
ing on the flights of delirium. —CoLERIDGE. 

1 That is, oes Warner, in his Albion’s England, calls pee 
mark Danske. 


sc. I. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 241 


What company, at what expense ; and, finding, 
By this encompassment and drift of question, 
That they do know my son, come you more nearer 
Than your particular demands will touch it: 
Take you, as *twere, some distant knowledge of him ; 
As thus, —* TI know his father, and his friends, 
And, in part, him :” — do you mark this, Reynaldo? 
Rey. Ay, very well, my lord. 
Pol. And, in part, him; but,” you may say, 
‘not well: 
But, if’t be he I mean, he’s very wild; 
Addicted so afd so ;”—and there put on him 
What forgeries you please; marry, none so rank 
As may dishonour him, take heed of that ; 
But, sir, such wanton, wild, and usual slips, 
As are companions noted and most known 
To youth and liberty. 


Rey. ' As gaming, my lord? 
Pol. Ay, or drinking, fencing,? swearing, quar- 
ra) to) 5 
relling, 


Drabbing : — you may go so far. 
Rey. My lord, that would dishonour him. 
Pol. ’Faith, no; as you may season it in the 
charge. 
You must not put another scandal on him, 
That he is open to incontinency ; 
That’s not my meaning: but breathe his faults so. 
quaintly, 
That they may seem the taints of liberty ; 
The flash and outbreak of a fiery mind; 


2 «The cunning of fencers is now applied to quurrelling ; they 
thinke themselves no men, if, for stirring of a straw, they prove 
not their valure uppon some bodies fleshe.” — G'osson’s Schole of 
Abuse, 1579. 


whe X. 21 16 | 


“ho |e There Narre 


242 HAMLET, ACT It. - 


A savageness® in unreclaimed blood, 

Of general assault. 
Rey. But, my good lord, — 
Pol. Wherefore should you do this? 
Rey. Ay, my lord, I would know that. 
Pol. Marry, sir, here’s my drift, 


- And I believe it is a fetch of warrant _ 


You laying these slight sullies on my son, 

As ’twere a thing a little soil’d i’the working, 
Mark you, 

Your party in converse, him you would sound, 
Having ever seen in the prenominate crimes 

The youth you breathe of guilty, be assur’d, 

He closes with you in this consequence: - 
«Good sir,” or so; or “friend,” or ‘ gentleman,” — 
According to the phrase, or the addition, 

Of man, and country ; — . 

Rey. Very good, my lord. 

Pol. And then, sir, does he this, — he does— 
What was I about to say ?— By the mass, I was 
about to say something :— Where did I leave? : 

Rey. At, closes in the consequence, 

As «friend or so” and “gentleman.” ® 

Pol. At, closes in the consequence, — ay, marry ; 

He closes thus: “I know the gentleman ; 

I saw him yesterday,” or ‘t’other day,” 

Or then, or then; ,with such, orsuch; “ and, as you 
say, 


3 A wildness of untamed blood, such as youth is generally as- 
sailed by. 

4 «A fetch of warrant”? seems to mean an allowable stratagem 
or practice. — The quartos have “ fetch of wit.” H. 

6 This line is in the folio only. In the third line before, the 
folio omits “By the mass,” probably on account of the statute 
against profanity ; and, in the second line after, inserts with you 
between closes and thus. H. 


sc. L PRINCE OF DENMARK. 243 


There was he gaming; there o’ertook in ’s rouse ; 
There falling out at tennis:” or, perchance, 
“T saw him enter such a house of sale, 
Videlicit, a brothel,” or so forth.— 
See you now; 
Your bait of falsehood takes this carp of truth; 
And thus do we of wisdom and of reach, 
With windlaces, and with assays of bias,® 
By indirections find directions out : 
So, by my former lecture and advice, 
Shall you my son. You have me, have you not? 
Rey. My lord, I have. 
Pol. God be wi’ you; fare you well. 
Rey. Good my lord. 
Pol. Observe his inclination in yourself.’ 
Rey. 1 shall, my lord. 
Pol. And let him ply his music. 
Rey. Well, my lord. [ Exit. 


Enter OPHELIA. 


Pol. Farewell !— How now, Ophelia! what’s the 
matter ? 
Oph. Alas, my lord! I have been so affrighted !° 
Pol. With what, in the name of God? 
Oph. My lord, as I was sewing in my chamber, 
Lord Hamlet, — with his doublet all unbrae’d ; 
No hat upon his head; his stockings foul’d, 


° 


$ That is, by tortuous devices and side essays. “To assay, or 
rather essay, of the French word essayer, tenture,” says Baret. 

7 That is, in your own person; add your own observations of 
his conduct to these inquiries respecting him. 

8 So the folio ; the quartos have, “O, my lord, my lord!” in- 
stead of, «Alas, my lord! ”’ Also, in the next line but one, the 
quartos have closet instead of chamber. — Here, as in divers other 
places, the folio substitutes Heaven for God ; doubtless on account 
of the statute mentioned in note 5. H, 


244 HAMLET, ACT IL 


Ungarter’d, and down-gyved to his ankle ;° 

Pale as his shirt; his knees knocking each other 5 
And-with a look so piteous in purport, 

As if he had been loosed out of hell, 

‘To speak of horrors, —he comes before me. 

.' Pol. Mad for thy love? 


Oph. - My lord, I do not know; 
But, truly, I do fear it. 
Pol. What said he? 


Oph. He took me by the wrist, and held me hard 3 
Then goes he to the length of all his arm; 
And, with his other hand thus o’er his brow, 
He falls to such perusal of my face, 
As he would draw it. Long stay’d he so; 
At last, —a little shaking of mine arm, 
And thrice his bead thus waving up and down, — 
He rais’d a sigh so piteous and profound, 
As it did seem to shatter all his bulk,’° 
And end his being. That done, he lets me go, 
And, with his head over his shoulder turn’d, 
He seem’d to find his way without his eyes ; 
For out o’doors he went without their help, 
And, to the last, bended their light on me. 

Pol. Come, go with me: I will go seek the king. 
This is the very ecstasy of love ; 
Whose violent property fordoes itself,” > 
And leads the will to desperate undertakings, 
As oft as any passion under heaven, 
That does afflict our natures. I am sorry, — 
What! have you given him any hard words of late? 


9 Hanging down like the loose cincture which confines the fet- 
ters or gyves round the ankles. 

10 That uF his breast. “The bulke or breast of a man, Thorax 
la poitrine.”” — BARET. 

11 'To fordo and to undo were synonymous. 


sc. IL PRINCE OF DENMARK. 245 


Oph. No, my good lord ;.but, as you did com- 


mand, 
I did repel his letters, and denied “« 
His access to me. 
Pol. That hath made him mad. 


I am sorry, that with better heed and judgment, 
I had not quoted him:’? I fear’d he did but trifle, 
And meant to wreck thee ; but, beshrew my jeai 
ousy | ! 
It seems it is as proper to our age! 
To cast beyond ourselves in our opinions, 
As it is common for the younger sort 
To lack discretion. Come, go we to the king: 
This must be known; which, being kept close, might 
_ move | 

More grief to hide, than hate to utter love.’* 

[ Exeunt. 


“SCENE IL. A Room in the Castle. 


Enter the King, the Queen, RosENCRANTZ, GUIL- 
DENSTERN, and Attendants. 


King. Welcome, dear Rosencrantz, and Guilden- 
stern ! 


12 To quote is to note, to mark, or observe. 

13 The folio substitutes It seems for By Heaven, of the quartos. 
Coleridge here makes the following remark: “In this admirable 
scene, Polonius, who is throughout the skeleton of his own former 
skill in state-craft, hunts the trail of policy at a dead scent, sup- 
plied by the weak fever-smell in his own nostrils.” H. 

14 « This must be made known to the king, for the hiding Ham- 
let’s love might occasion more mischief to us from him and the 
queen, than the uttering or revealing it will occasion hate and re- 
sentment from Hamlet.” Johnson, whose explanation this is, at- 
tributes the obscurity to the Poet’s «affectation of concluding the 
scene with a couplet.”” There would surely have been more af- 
fectation in deviating from the universally established custom, — 
"The quartos add Come, after the closing couplet. 


21* 


246 HAMLET, ACT IT 


Moreover that we much did long to see you,’ 

The need we had to use you did provoke 

Our hasty sending. Something have you heard 

Of Hamlet’s transformation ; so I call it, 

Since nor th’ exterior nor the inward man 

Resembles that it was. What it should be, 

More than his father’s death, that thus hath put him 

So much from th’ understanding of himself, 

I cannot dream of:* I entreat you both, 

That, — being of so young days brought up with him, 

And, since, so neighbour’d to his youth and hu- 
mour, — oF 

That you vouchsafe your rest here in our court 

Some little time ; so by your companies 

To draw him on to pleasures ; and to gather, 

So much as from occasion you may glean, 

Whether aught, to us unknown, afflicts him thus, 


That, open’d, lies within our remedy. @. 
Queen. Good gentlemen, he hath much talk’d of 
you ; . 


And, sure I am, two men there are not living, 
To whom he more adheres. [If it will please you 
To show us so much gentry *® and good will, 
As to expend your time with us awhile, 
For the supply and profit of our hope,‘ 
Your visitation shall receive such thanks 
As fits a king’s remembrance. 
Ros. . Both your majesties 


1 We do not recollect another instance of moreover that used in 
this way. Of course, the sense is the same as besides that, ot 
“ over and above ‘the fact that,” &c. H. 

2 So the quartos; the folio, «deem of.” In the next line but 
one, the quartos have haviour ‘instead of humour. H. 

3 Gentry for gentle courtesy. —'T he last line but one, in the pre- ; 
ceding speech, is not in the folio. H. 

4 Supply and profit is aid and advantage. 


ay 
i 


sc. Il. PRINCE OF DENMARK. Q47 


Might, by the sovereign power you-have of us, 
Put-your dread pleasures more into command 
Than. to entreaty. | 
Guil. ' But we both obey ; 
And here give up ourselves, in the full bent, 
To lay our service freely at your feet, 
To be commanded. 
King. Thanks, Rosencrantz, and gentle Guilden- 
stern: .. 
Queen. Thanks, Guildenstern, and gentle Rosen- 
crantz : 
And I beseech you instantly to visit 
My too-much-changed son.— Go, some of you, 
And bring these gentlemen where Hamlet is. 
Guil. Heavens make our presence, and our prac- 
tices, 
Pleasant and helpful to him! 
Queen. Ay, amen! 
[Exeunt Ros. Guin. and some Attendants. 


Enter Po.ontus. 


Pol. Th’ ambassadors from Norway, my good 
lord, 
Are joyfully return’d. 
King. Thou still hast been the father of good 
news. 
Pol. Have I, my lord? Assure you, my good 
liege,. 
I hold my duty, as I hold my soul, 
Both to my God, and to my gracious king; 
And I do think (or else this brain of mine 
Hunts not the trail of policy so sure 
As it hath us’d to do) that I have found 
The very cause of Hamlet’s lunacy. 
King. O! speak of that; that do I long to hear. 


,) “ne cL Ane 


248 HAMLET, ACT IL 


Pol. Give, first, admittance to th’ ambassadors ; 
My news shall be the fruit to that great feast.- 
_ King. Thyself do grace to them, and bring them 
in. — [ Exit PoLontus. 
He tells me, my dear Gertrude, he hath found 
The head and source of all your son’s distemper. 
Queen. I doubt, it is no other but the main 3 
His father’s death, and our o’erhasty marriage.’ 


Re-enter PoLonivus, with VoLTIMAND and Cor- 
NELIUS. 


King. Well, we shall sift him.— Welcome, my 
good friends! | 
Say, Voltimand, what from our brother Norway ? 
Vol. Most fair return of greetings and desires. 
Upon our first, he sent out to suppress 
His nephew’s levies ; which to him appear’d > 
To be a preparation ’gainst the Polack ; 
But, better look’d into, he truly found 
It was against your highness: whereat griev’d, — 
That so his sickness, age, and impotence, 
Was falsely borne in hand,° — sends out arrests — 
On Fortinbras ; which he in brief obeys, 
Receives rebuke from Norway, and; in fine, 
Makes vow before his uncle never more 
To give th’ assay of arms against your majesty. 
Whereon old Norway, overcome with joy, 
Gives him three thousand crowns in annual fee ;7 
And.his commission, to employ those soldiers, 
So levied as before, against the Polack : 


5 So the folio; the quartos have hasty instead of o’erhasty. 


H. 
6 To bear in hand is to lead along by assurances or expecta: 
tions. See Measure for Measure, Act i. sc. 5, note 6. H. 


7 That is, the king gave his nephew a few or fee in land of 
that annual value. 


Ye 


sc. A PRINCE OF DENMARK. 249 


With an intreaty, herein further shown, 
[Giving a Paper. 
That it might please you to give quiet pass | 
Through your dominions for this enterprise ; 
On such regards of safety and allowance, 
As thereM are set down. 
King. It likes us well ; 
And, at our more consider’d time, we’ll read, 
Answer, and think upon this business : 


‘Meantime, we thank you for your well-took labour. 


Go to your rest; at night we’ll feast together : 
Most welcome home ! A: 
[Exeunt VoLTIMAND and CoRNELIUS. 

Pol. This business is well ended. 

My liege, and madam, to expostulate ® 

What majesty should be, what duty is, 

Why day is day, night, night, and time is time, 

Were nothing but to waste night, day, and time. 

Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit, 

And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes, 

I will be brief. Your noble son is mad: 

Mad call I it; for, to define true madness, 


What is’t, but to be nothing else but mad: 


But let that go. 
Queen. More matter, with less art. 
Pol. Madam, I swear I use no art at all. 


‘That he is mad, ’tis true: ’tis true ’tis pity, 


And pity ’tis, ’tis true: a foolish figure ; 

But farewell it, for I will use no art. 

Mad let us grant him, then ; and now remains, 
That we find out the cause of this effect ; 

Or rather say, the cause of this defect ; 

lor this effect defective comes by cause : 


8 That is, to inquire; another Latinism. 


250 HAMLET, ACT II 


Thus it remains, and the remainder thus. 
Perpend: ; , 
I have a daughter ; have, while she is mine 3 
Who, in her duty and obedience, mark, 
Hath given me this: Now gather and surmise. 
«To the celestial, and my soul’s idol, *the most 
beautified Ophelia,” ? — 
That’s an ill phrase, a vile phrase; ‘ beautified” 1s 
a vile phrase; but you shall hear. — Thus: 
«In her excellent white bosom, these,’ &c."° 
Queen. Came this from Hamlet to her? 
Pol. Good madam, stay awhile; I will be faith- 
ful. — 


[Reads.] Doubt thou the stars are fire, 
Doubt that the sun doth move; 
Doubt truth to be a liar; . 
_ But never doubt I love. 

UO, dear Ophelia, I am ill at these numbers: I have not 
art to reckon my groans; but that I love thee best, O most 
best! believe it. Adieu. 

Thine evermore, most dear lady, whilst 
this machine is to him, HAMLET. 


This in obedience hath my daughter shown me; 
And, more above, hath his solicitings, 

As they fell out by time, by means, and place, 
All given to mine ear. 


King. But how hath she 
Receiv’d his love? 
Pol. What do you think of me? 


King. As of a man faithful and honourable. 


9 Beautified is not uncommon in dedications and encomiastic 
verses of the Poet’s age. 

10 The word these was usually added at the end of the super- 
scription of letters. See The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act iii. 
sc. 1, note 10. 


SC. II. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 251 


Pol. I would fain prove so. But what might 
*; you think, — 
When I had seen this hot love on the wing, 
(As I perceiv’d it, I must tell you that, 
Before my daughter told me,) what might you, 
Or my dear majesty your queen here, think, 
If I had play’d the desk, or table-book ; 
Or given my heart a winking, mute and dumb ;" 
Or look’d upon this love with idle sight ; 
What might you think ? no, I went round”? to work, 
- And my young mistress thus did I bespeak : 
“Lord Hamlet is a prince, out of thy star;7° 
This must not be:” and then I precepts gave her, 
That she should lock herself from his resort, 
Admit no messengers, receive no tokens. | 
Which done, she took the fruits of my advice 3 
And he, repulsed, (a short tale to make, ) 
Fell into a sadness ; then into a fast ; 
Thence to a watch; thence into a weakness ; 
Thence to a lightness; and, by this declension, 
Into the madness wherein now he raves, 
And all we wail for.’ 
King. Do you think ’tis this? 
Queen. It may be, very likely. 
Pol. Hath there been such a time (I'd fain 
know that) | 
That I have positively said, « Tis so,” 
When it prov’d otherwise ? 
King, ~ Not that I know. 


1 That is, if I had given my heart a hint to be mute about 
their passion. “ Conniventia, awinking at; a sufferance ; a feign- 
ing not to see or know.”” The quartos have working instead of 
winking. 

12 Plainly, roundly, without reserve. 

8 That is, not within thy destiny ; alluding to the supposed ins 
fluence of the stars on the fortune of life. H. 

14 So the folio; the quartos have mourn instead of wail. 

a Hi: 


her ek wor ia Eee le >. 


252 HAMLET, ACT If. 


Pol. Take this from this, if this be otherwise : 
[Pointing to his Head and Shoulder. 
If circumstances lead me, I will find 
- Where truth is hid, though it were hid indeed 
Within the centre. - 


King. ~ How may we try it further ? 
Pol. You know, sometimes he walks four hours 
together, 
Here in the lobby. 
Queen. So he does, indeed. 


Pol. At such a time I’ll loose my daughter to him : 
Be you and I behind an arras then: 
Mark the encounter ; if he love her not, 
And be not from his reason fallen thereon, 
Let me be no assistant for a state, 
But keep a farm, and carters. 
nee : We will try it. 


Einter HAMLET, reading. 


Queen. But, look, where sadly the poor wretch 
comes reading. 
Pol. Away! I do beseech you, both away. 
I’ll board’* him presently: —O! give me leave. — 
[{Exeunt King, Queen, and Attendants. 
How does my good lord Hamlet ? 
Ham. Well, god-’a-mercy. 
Pol. Do you kuow me, ms lord ? 
Ham.. Excellent well; you’re a fishmonger.”® 
Pol. Not I, my lord. 
Ham. Then, I wouldfou were so honest a man. 
Pol. Honest, my lord? 


"15 That is, accost, address him. So in Twelfth Night, Act i, 
sc. 3; “ Accost i is, front her, board her, woo her, assail her.” 
H. 
16 « That is,” says Coleridge, “you are sent to fish ont this 
secret. This is Hamlet’s own meaning.” H. 


SC. II. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 253 


Ham. Ay, sir; to be honest, as this world goes, 
is to be one man pick’d out of ten thousand. 

Pol. That’s very true, my lord. 

Ham. For if the sun breed | maggots in a dead 
dog; being a good kissing oe 7_Have you a 
daughter ? 

Pol. I have, my lord. 

Ham. Let her not walk i’the sun: conception is 
a blessing; but not as your daughter may con- 
ceive :'* —friend, look to’t. 


17 Such is the reading of all the old copies. Warburton 
changed it to, “being a god, kissing carrion,” and supported the 
change with a long comment which, in the opinion of Dr. Johnson, 
“ almost sets the critic on a level with the author!”’ The critic re- 
marks that Shakespeare “bad an art not only of acquaintiug the 
audience with what bis actors say, but what they think ;” and he 
regards the passage as intended to “ vindicate the ways of Prov- 
idence in permitting evil to‘abound in the world.” He sums up 
his argument thus : “ If the effect follows the thing operated upon, 
barrton; and not the thing operating, a God, why need we wonder 
that, the supreme Cause of all things diffusing blessings on man, 
who is a dead carrion, be. instead of a proper retorn, should breed 
corruption and vices 7”? The comment is certainly most ingenious 3 
too much so indeed, as it looks as if the critic were attributing his 
own thoughts to the Poet. Shakespeare, it is true, elsewhere calls 
the sun “common-kissing Titan ;”’ but if, in this case, good had 
been a misprint for god, it would most likely have begun with a 
capital, Good. Either way, the passage is very obscure ; Cole- 
ridge thinks it is purposely so. We are unable to decide whether 
good kissing should mean good to kiss, or good at kissing, that is, 
at returning a kiss. Mr. Verplanck explains it thas: “If even a 
dead dog can be kissed by the sun, how much more is youthful beau- 
ty in danger of corruption, unless it seek the shade.” This is, on 
the whole, the best we have seen, but we must add Coleridge's 
explanation: “ Why, fool as he is, he is some degrees in rank 
above a dead dog’s carcass ; and if the sun can raise life out of | 
a dead dog, why 1 may not good fortune, that favours fools, have 
raised a lovely girl out of rite dead- alive) old fool?” In eluci- 
dation of the passage, Malone aptly quotes the following from the 
play of King Edward III., 1596: 


“ The freshest summer’s day doth soonest taint 
The loathed carrion that it seems to kiss.” H. 


48 So the folio; mot is wanting in the quartos. The sense of 
VOL. X. 22 


254 HAMLET, ACT IL: 


Pol. [Aside.] How say you by that? Still harp- 
ing on my daughter: — yet he knew me not at first 5 
he -said, I was a fishmonger. He is far gone, far 
gone: and, truly in my youth I suffer’d much ex- 
tremity for love; very near this. I'll speak to -him 
again. — What do you read, my lord? 

Ham. Words, words, words ! 

Pol. What is the matter, my lord? 

Ham. Between whom? 

Pol. I mean, the matter that you read, my lord 

Ham. Slanders, sir: for the satirical rogue say: 
here, that old men have gray beards; that thei 
faces are wrinkled; their eyes purging thick amber, 
and plum-tree gum; and_ that they have a plentifu 
lack of wit, together with most weak hams: all ot 
which, sir, though I nrost powerfully and potently 
believe, yet I hold it not honesty to have it thus sev 
down; for yourself, sir, should be as old as I am,’ 
if, like a crab, you could go backward. 

Pol. [Aside.] Though this be madness, yet there’s 
method in’t.— Will you walk out of the air, my 
lord? 

Ham. Into my grave ? 

Pol. Indeed, that is out o’the air.— How preg- 
nant sometimes his replies are! a happiness that 
often madness hits on, which reason and sanity 
could not so prosperously be deliver’d of. I will 
Jeave him, and suddenly contrive the means of 
meeting between him and my daughter. — My hon- 


, 
the passage is much the same either way, and needs no explana- 
tion. Of course Hamlet’s language is a part of his “antic dis- 
position,” and meant to favour the notion of his being insane. 

H. 
19 So the folio ; the quartos have shall grow instead of should 
be. H. 


oO 


sc. fi. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 255 


ourable lord, I will most humbly take my leave of 
* you.” 

Ham. You cannot, sir, take from me any thing 
that I will more willingly part withal ; except my 
life, except my life, except. my life. 

Pol. Fare you well, my lord. 

Ham. These tedious old fools! 


Enter Rosencrantz and GUILDENSTERN. 


Pol. You go to seek the lord Hamlet; there 
he is. 
Ros. [ To Potontus.] God save you, sir. 
[ Brit Potontius. 

Guil. My honour’d lord !— 
Ros. My most dear lord! — 
Ham. My excellent goud friends! How dost 
‘ thou, Guildenstern? Ah, Rosencrantz! Good lads, 
how do ye both? 

Ros. As the indifferent children of the earth. 

Guil. Happy, in that we af€ not overhappy 5 
On fortune’s cap we are not the very button. 

Ham. Nor the soles of her shoe? 

Ros. Neither, my lord. 

Ham. Then you live about her waist, or in the 
middle of her favours? 

Guil. ’Faith, her privates we. 

Ham. In the secret parts of fortune? O, most 
true! she is a strumpet. What news? 

Ros. None, my lord, but that the world’s grown 
honest. 


20 Such is the folio reading ; the quartos give the latter part of 
the speech thus; “I will leave him and my daughter. — My lord, 
I will take my leave of you.”” —In the next speech, the folio has, 
“except my life, my life.” Coleridge says of the quarto reading, 
— “This repetition strikes me as most admirable.” H. 


256 - HAMLET, AOW Il. 


Ham. Then is dooms-day near. But your news 
is not true. Let me question more in particular 
What have you, my good friends, deserved at the 
hands of fortune, that she sends you to prison 
hither ? 

Guil. Prison, my lord! 

Ham. Denmark’s a prison. 

Ros. Then is the world one. 

Ham. A goodly one; in which there are many 
confines, wards, and dungeons, Denmark being one 
o’the worst. 

Ros. We think not so, my lord. 

Ham. Why, then ’tis none to you; for there is 
nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it 
s0: to me it is a prison. 

Ros. Why, then your ambition makes it one: “tis 
too narrow for your mind. 

Ham. O God! I could be bounded in a nutshell, 
and count myself a king of infinite space, were it 
not that I have bad @teams. 

Guil. Which ‘dreams, indeed, are ambition ; for 
the very substance of the ambitious is merely the 
shadow of a dream. 

Ham. A dream itself is but a shadow. 

Ros. Truly; and I hold ambition of so airy and 
light a quality, that it is but a shadow’s shadow. 

Ham. Then are our beggars bodies, and our 
monarchs and outstretch’d heroes the beggars’ 
shadows.2! Shall we to the court? for, by my fay, 
I cannot reason.” 


21 If ambition is such an unsubstantial thing, then are our beg- 
gars (who at least can dream of greatness) the only things of sub- 
stance, and monarchs and heroes, though appearing to fill such 
mighty space with their ambition, but the shadows of the beggars’ 
dreams. — JOHNSON. 

22 Fay is merely a diminutive of faith. See The Taming of 
the Shrew, Induction, se. 2, note 6. H. 


sc. Il. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 257 


Ros. Guil. We'll wait upon you. 

» Ham. No such matter: I will not sort you with 
the rest of my servants; for, to speak to you like an 
honest man, I am most dreadfully attended.*? But, 
in the beaten way of friendship, what make you at 
Elsinore ? 

Ros. Yo visit you, my lord; no other occasion. 

Ham. Beggar that I am, I am even poor in 
thanks, but I thank you; and sure, dear friends, 
my thanks are too dear, a half-penny. Were you 
not sent for? Is it your own inclining ? is it a free 
visitation? Come, come ; deal justly with me: come, 
come; nay, speak. 

Guil. What should we say, my lord? 

fam. Any thing, but to the purpose. You were 
sent for; and there is a kind of confession in your 
looks, which your modesties have not craft enough 
to colour: I know the good king and queen have 
sent for you. 

Ros. To what end, my lord? 

Ham. That you must teach me. But let me con- 
jure you by the rights of our fellowship, by the con- 
sonancy of our youth, by the obligation of our ever- 
preserved love, and by what more dear a better 
proposer could charge you withal, be even and di- 
rect with me, whether you were sent for, or no? . 

Ros. [ To GUILDEN.] What say you? 

Ham. { Aside.] Nay, then I have an eye of you.*4 
-—If you love me, hold not off. 

Guil. My lord, we were sent for. 


*3 The foregoing part of the scene, beginning with, «Let me 
question more in particular,” is found only in the folio. —« What 
make you,” in the next line, is, «« What do you.” The usage was 


common. Ul. 
*4 That is, I will watch you sharply ; of for on, a common 
usage, Hai 


22% 17 


258 0 YAMLET;, ry ACT Il. 


Ham. I will tell you why; so shall my anticipa- 
tion prevent your discovery, and your secrecy to 
the -king and queen moult no feather.” I have of 
late (but wherefore [ know not) lost all my mirth, 
foregone all custom of exercises; and, indeed, it 
goes so heavily with my disposition, that this goodly 
frame, the earth, seems to me to be a sterile promon- 
tory; this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, 
this brave o’erhanging firmament,”® this majestical 
roof fretted with golden fire, why, it appeareth 
nothing to me but a foul and pestilent congregation 
of vapours. What a piece of work isa man! How 
noble in reason! how infinite in faculties! in form 
and moving, how express and admirable! in action, 
how like an angel! in apprehension, how like a 
god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of anl-. 
mals! And yet, to me, what is this quintessence 
of dust ?:man delights not me; no, nor woman nei- 
ther, though by your smiling you seem to say so. 

Ros. My lord, there is no such stuff in my 
thoughts. 

Ham. Why did you laugh, then, when I said, 
«Man delights not me?” 


25 That is, not change a feather; moult being an old word for 
change ; applied especially to birds when putting on a new suit of 
clothes. So in Bacon’s Naturall Historie: “Some birds jhere be, 
that upon their mouliing do turn colour ; as robin-redbreasts, after 
their moulting, grow red again by degrees.” — The whole passage 
seems to mean, “ my anticipation shall prevent your discovering to 
me the purpose of your visit, and so your promise of secrecy will 
be perfectly kept.” i. 

26 So the quartos ; the folio omits firmament, and so of course 
turns o’erhunging into a substantive. Jt may well be thought, 
that by the omission the language becomes more Shakespearian, 
without any loss of eloquence. But the passage, as it stands, is 
so much a household word, that it seems best not to change it. — 
The folio also has, “appears no other thing to me than,” instead 
of, “‘appeareth nothing to me but.” _H. 


SC. I. ' PRINCE OF DENMARK. Pass! De le 


Ros. To think, my lord, if you delight not in 
man, what lenten entertainment the players shall 
receive from you:*’ we coted them on the way, and 
hither are they coming to offer you service. 

Han. He that plays the king shall be welcome ; 
his majesty shall have tribute of me: the adven- 
turous knight shall use his foil and target; the 
lover shall not sigh gratis; the humorous man shall 
_end his part in peace ; the clown shall make those 
Jaugh, whose lungs are tickled o’the sere; ** and 
the lady shall say her mind freely, or the blank verse 
shall halt for’t. — What players are they? 

Ros. Even those you were wont to take such de- 
light in, the tragedians of the city. 

Ham. How chances it, they travel? their resi- 
dence, both in reputation and profit, was better both 
ways. . 


Ros. I think, their inhibition comes by the means 
of the late innovation.*® 


*7 « Lenten entertainment” is entertainment for the season of 
Lent, when players were not allowed to perform in public. See 
Twelfth Night, Act i. sc. 5, note 1.— To cote is to pass alongside, 
to pass by, or overtake. So in The Return from Parnassus: 
“Marry, presently coted and outstript them.” H. 

*3 ‘The meaning appears to be, the clown shall make even those 
laugh whose lungs are tickled with a dry cough, or huskiness ; by 
his merriment shall convert even their coughing into Jaughter. 
The same expression occurs in Howard’s Defensative against the 
Poyson of supposed Prophecies, 1620: « Discovering the moods 
and humours of the vulgar sort to be so loose and tickle of the 
seare.” ‘The words are found only in the folio. ‘The first quarto 
has, “make them laugh that are tickled in the lungs.” 

*9 Referring, no doubt, to the order of the Privy Council, June, 
1600, quoted in our Introduction to Twelfth Night, Vol i., page 337. 
By this order, the players were inhibited from acting in or near 
the city during the season of Lent, besides being very much re- 
stricted at all other seasons, and hence “chances it they travel,” 
or stroll into the country. — As the matter involves some curious 
points as to the time or times. when this play was written, it may 
be well to adc the corresponding passage from the quarto of. 16034 


260 HAMLET, ACT Il. 


Ham. Do they hold the same estimation they did 
when I was in the city? Are they so follow’d ? 

Ros. No, indeed, they are not. 

Ham. How comes it? Do they grow rusty? 

Ros. Nay, their endeavour keeps in the wonted 
pace: but there is, sir, an aiery of children} little 
eyases, that cry out on the top of question,” and 
are most tyrannically clapp’d for’t: these are now 
the fashion ; and so berattle the common stages, (so 
they call them,) that many, wearing rapiers, are 
afraid of goose quills, and dare scarce come thither. 

Ham. What! are they children? who maintains 
them? how are they escoted?*' Will they pursue 


“ Ham. Players? what players be they ? 

«* Ros. My lord, the tragedians of the city; those that you took 
delight to see so often. 

«“ Ham. How comes it that they travel? Do they grow restie ? 

“ Guil. No, my lord ; their reputation holds as it was wont. 

“ Ham. How then? 

«“ Guil. I ’faith, my Jord, novelty carries it away ; for the prin- 
cipal public audience that came to them are turned to private 
plays, and the humour of children.” H. 


30 Aiery, from eyren, eggs, properly means a brood, but some- 
times a nest. See King Richard IIL., Act i. sc. 3, note 20. — Eyas 
is a name for an unfledged hawk. See The Merry Wives of 
Windsor, Act iil. se. 3, note 2.—<“ Top of question”’ probably 
means, top of their voice ; question being often used for speech. — 
The allusion is to the children of St. Paul's and of the Revels, whose 
performing of plays was much in fashion at the time this play was 
written. From an early date, the choir-boys of St. Paul’s, West- 
minster, Windsor, and the Chapel Royal, were engaged in such 
performances, and sometimes played at Court. The complaint 
here is, that these juveniles so abuse « the common stages,”’ that 
is, the theatres, as to deter many from visiting them. In Jack 
Drum’s Entertainment, 1601, one of the speakers says they were 
heard « with much applause ;” and another speaks thus: “I sawe 
the children of Powles last night, and, troth, they pleas’d me pret- 
tie, prettie well: the apes in time will do it handsomely.” 1. 

31 Escoted is paid ; from the French escot, a shot or reckoning, 
— Quality is profession or calling ; often so used. —“ No longer 
than they can sing,’’ means, no longer than they keep the voices 
of boys. , a 


~ 


SC. II. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 261 


the quality no longer than they can sing? will they 
not say afterwards, if they should grow themselves 
to common players, (as it is most like, if their means 
are no better,) their writers do them wrong, to make 
them exclaim against their own succession ? 

Ros. ’Faith, there has been much to do on both 
sides; and the nation holds it no sin, to tarre*? 
them on to controversy: there was, for a while no 
money bid for argument, unless the poet and the 
player went to cuffs in the question. 

Ham. Is it possible? 

Guil. O! there has been much throwing about of 
brains. 

Ham. Do the boys carry it away? 

Ros. Ay, that they do, my lord; Hercules and 
his load too.** 

Ham. It is not very strange: for my uncle is 
king of Denmark, and those, that would make 
mowes** at him while my father lived, give twenty, 
forty, fifty, an hundred ducats a-piece, for his pic- 
ture in little. ’Sblood, there is something in this 
more than natural, if philosophy could find it out. 

[Flourish of Trumpets within. 

Guil. 'There are the players. 

Ham. Gentlemen, you are welcome to Elsinore. 
Your hands. Come, then; the appurtenance of 
welcome is fashion and ceremony; let me comply 


82 That is, set them on; a phrase borrowed from the setting on 
a dog. See King John, Act iv. sc. 1, note 6. 

383 That is, carry all the world before thems there is perhaps an 
allusion to the Globe theatre, the sign of which is said to have been 
Hercules carrying the globe. — This speech and what precedes, 
begiuning at, “ Nay, their endeavour keeps,” &c., are found only 
in the folio. H. 

34 So the folio; the quartos, mouths; all but the first, which 
has mops and moes. , H. 


20207 * | HAMLET, ACT Tl. 


with you in this garb ;*° lest my extent to the play- 
ers (which, I tell you, must show fairly outward) 
should more appear like entertainment than yours. 
You are welcome; but my uncle-father and a int- 
mother are deceiv’d. 

Guil. In what, my dear lord? 

HTam. 1 am -but mad _ north-north-west ; when 
the wind is southerly, I know a hawk from a hand- 
saw.°° . 


Re-enter POLONIvs. 


Pol. Well be with you, gentlemen! 


Ham. Hark you, Guildenstern ;—and you too ; 


—at each ear a hearer :. that great baby, you see 
there, is not yet out of his swathing-clouts. 

tos. Haply, he’s the second time come to them $ 
for, they say, an old man is twice a child. 

Ham. 1 will prophesy, he comes to tell me of the 
players; mark it. — You say right, sir: o’Monday 
morning ; ’twas then, indeed. 

Pol. My lord, I have news to tell you. 

Ham. My lord, I have news to tell you: When 
Roscius was an actor in Rome, — 

Pol. The actors are come hither, my lord. 

Ham. Buz, buz! 


35 That is, let me embrace you in this fashion; lest I should 
seem to give you a less courteous reception than I give the play- 
ers, to whom I must behave with at least exterior politeness. ‘That 
comply with was sometimes used in the sense of embrace appears 
by the following from Herrick : 


«“ Witty Ovid, by 
Whom fair Corinna sits, and doth comply, 
With iv’ry wrists, his laureat head, and steeps 
His eye in dew of kisses, while he sleeps.” 


36 « To know a hawk from a handsaw,” was a proverb in Shakes 
speare’s time. Handsaw is merely a corruption of hernshaw, 
which means a heron. a. 


sc. IL. PRINCE OF DENMARK. : 263 


Pol. Upon my honour, — 

Ham. Then came each actor on his ass, — 

Pol. The best’ actors in the world, either for 
tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comical, 
historical-pastoral, tragical-historical, tragical-comi- 
cal-historical-pastoral,*’ scene individable, or poem 
unlimited: Seneca cannot be too heavy, nor Plautus 
too light. For the ay of writ, th the liberty, | 
these are the only men.” 

Ham. O, Sephthah, judge of Israel, what a treas- 
ure hadst thou ! 


’ Pol. What a treasure had he, my lord? 
Ham. Why — 


One fair daughter, and no more, 
The which he loved passing well.” 


37 The words, “ tragical-historical, tragical-comical-historical- 
pastoral,” are found only in the first quarto and the folio. H, 

38 « The meaning,” says Collier, « probably is, that the players 
were good, whether at written productions or at exlemporal plays, 
where. liberty was allowed to the performers to Joga the dialogue, 
in imitation of the Htalian commedie al improviso.” In Elizabeth’s 
time, it was the custom of the students in the Universities to act 
Latin plays ; and, as Warton remarks, it may have been this that 
suggested the names of Seneca and Plautus to the Poet. In the 
next Act, Hamlet says to Relamings zs My lord, you play’d once 
in the university, you say.’ H. 

39 These lines are from an old ballad, entitled “ Jephtha, Judge 
of Israel.’’ It was first printed in Percy’s Reliques, having been 
“retrieved from utter oblivion by a lady, w ho wrote it down from 
memory, as she had formerly heard it sung by her father.” A 
more correct copy has since been decal and reprinted in 
Evans’ Old Ballads, 1810; where the first stanza runs thus ; 


“T have read that™ many years agoe, 
When Jephtha, judge of Israel, 
Had one fair daughter and no moe, 
Whom he loved passing well ; 
As by lot, God wot, 
It came to passe, most like it was, 
Great warrs there should be, 
And who should be the chiefe but he, but he.” H. 


2645 * HAMLET, ACT Il. 


Pol. [Aside.] Still on my daughter. 

Ham. Am I not ithe right, old Jepbthah ? 

Pol. If you call me Jephthah, my lord, I have a 
daughter that I love passing well. 

Ham. Nay, that follows not. 

Pol. What follows, then, my lord? 

Ham. Why, 


. As by lot, God wot, 
And then, you know, 
‘ It came to pass, as most like it was, — 


The first row of the pious chanson will show you 
more; for look, where my abridgment comes.*® 


Enter Four or Five Players. 


Ye’re welcome, masters ; welcome, all.—I am glad 
to see thee well: — welcome, good friends. — QO, 
old friend! Why, thy face is ralencl d*’ since I saw 
thee last: com’st thou to beard me in Denmark ? 
— What! my young lady and mistress! By-’r-lady, 
your ladyship is nearer to heaven, than when I saw 
you last, by the altitude of a chopine.*” ’Pray God, 


40 That is, probably, those who will abridge my talk.—«“ The 
pious chanson” is something to be sung or chanted ; in the first 
quarto it is called “ the godly ballud.”* — “The first row,’ seems 
to mean “ the first column.” H. 

41 That is, fringed with a beard. 

42 A chopine was a kind of high shoe, worn by the Spanish and 
Italian ladies, and adopted at one time as a fashion by the Eng- 
lish. Cerials describes those worn by the Venetians as some of 
them “half a yard high.” Bulwer, in his Artificial Changeling, 
complains of this fashion, as a monstrous affectation, “whercin 
our ladies imitate the Venetian and Persian ladies.” Chapin is 
the Spanish name; and Cobarruvias countenances honest Tom 
Coriate’s account of the preposterous height to which some Jadieg 
carried them. He tells an old tale of their being invented to pre- 
vent women’s gadding, being first made of wood, and very heavy; 
and that the ingenuity of the women overcame this inconvenience 


SC. IL PRINCE OF DENMARK. 265 


your voice, like a piece of uncurrent gold, be not 
erack’d within the ring.*?— Masters, you are all 
welcome. We'll e’en to’t like French falconers,“* 
fly at any thing we see: We'll have a speech 
straight. Come, give us a taste of your quality ; 
come, a passionate speech. 

1 Play. What speech, my good lord? 

Flam. I heard thee speak me a speech once, — 
but it was never acted; or, if it was, not above 
once: for the play, I remember, pleas’d not the 
million; “twas caviare to the general:** but it. 
was (as I receiv’d it, and others, whose judgments 
in such matters cried in the top of mine) an excel- 
lent play ; well digested in the scenes, set down 
with as much modesty as cunning. I remember, 
one said there were no sallets in the lines *® to make 
the matter savoury, nor no matter in the phrase, 


by substituting cork. Though they are mentioned under the name 
of cioppini by those who saw them in use in Venice, the diction- 
aries record them under the title of zoccoli. 

43 The old gold coin was thin and liable to crack. There was 
a ring or circle on it, within which the sovereign’s head, &c., was 
placed ; ; if the crack extended beyond this ring,it was rendered 
uncurrent: it was therefore a simile applied to any other debased 
or injured object. There is some humour in applying it to a 
cracked voice. 

44 So the folio and the first quarto; the other quartos have 
friendly instead of French. Hi. 

43 Cuviare was the pickled roes of certain fish of the sturgeon 
kind, ealled in Italy eaviale, and much used there and in other 
countries. Great quantities were prepared on the river Volga for- 
merly. As.a dish of high seasoning and peculiar flavour, it was 
not relished by the many, that is, the general. A fantastic fellow, 
described in Jonson’s Cynthia’s Revels, is said to be learning to 
eat macaroni, periwinkles, French beans, and caviare, and pre- 
tending to like them. 

46 The force of this phrase will appear by the following from 
A Banquet of Jests, 1665:—“ For junkets joci, and for sallets 
sales.” «Sal. Sulte, a pleasante and mery word, that maketh 
folke to Jaugh, and sometimes pricketh.” — Barer. 


VOL. xX. 23 


266 HAMLET, ACT It. 


that might indict the author of affectation ;*7 but 
eall’d it an honest method, as wholesome as sweet, 
and by very much more handsome than fine. One 
speech in it I chiefly lov’d: ’twas ASneas’ tale to 
Dido; and thereabout of it especially, where he 
speaks: of Priam’s slaughter. If it live in your 
memory, begin at this line: let me see, let me 
see 5 — 
The rugged Pyrrhus, like th’ Hyrcanian beast, — 

*tis not so}; it begins with Pyrrhus. 


The rugged Pyrrhus, — he, whose sable arms,4® 
Black as his purpose, did the night resemble 
When he lay couched in the ominous horse, 

Hath now his dread and black complexion smear’d 
With heraldry more dismal; head to foot 

Now he is total gules; *° horridly trick’d 

With blood of fathers, mothers, daughters, sons ; 
Bak’d and impasted with the parching streets, 
That lend a tyrannous and a damned light 

To their lord’s murder: Roasted in wrath and fire, 
And thus o’er-sized with coagulate gore, 

With eyes like carbuncles, the hellish Pyrrhus 
Old grandsire Priam seeks : — 


So proceed you. 


47 So the folio; the quartos, affection, which was sometimes 
used for affectation. — Indic is impeach or convict. H. 

48 Schlegel observes, that “this speech must not be judged by 
itself, but in connexion with the place where it is introduced. To 
distinguish it as dramatic poetry in the play itself, it was necessary 
that it should rise above the dignified poetry of that in the same 
proportion that the theatrical elevation does above simple nature. 
Hence Shakespeare has composed the play in Hamlet altogether 
in sententious rhymes, full of antithesis. But this solemn and 
measured tone did not suit a speech in which violent emotion 
ought to prevail; and the Poet had no other expedient than the - 
one of which be made use, overcharging the pathos.” 

49 Gules is red, in the language of heraldry: to trick is to 
colour.— The folio has to take instead of total. 


— 


SC. Th PRINCE OF DENMARK. 267 


Pol. "Fore God, my lord, well spoken; abe 
good accent, and good discretion. a 


1 Play. Anon he finds him 
Striking too short at Greeks; his antique sword, 
Rebellious to his arm, lies where-it falls, 
Repugnant tocommand. Unequal match’d, 
Pyrrhus at Priam drives ; in rage, strikes wide; 
But with the whiff and wind of his fell sword 
Th’ unnerved father falls. Then senseless Ilium, 
Seeming to feel this blow, with flaming top 
Stoops to his base ; and with a hideous crash 
Takes prisoner Pyrrhus’ ear: for, lo! his sword, 
Which was declining on the milky head 
Of reverend Priam, seem’d i’the air to stick: 

So, as a painted tyrant, Pyrrhus stood ; 

And, like a neutral to his will and matter, 

Did nothing. 

But, as we often see, against some storm, 

A silence in the heavens, the rack stand still,5° 
The bold winds speechless, and the orb below 
As hush as death; anon the dreadful thunder 
Doth rend the region: so, after Pyrrhus’ pause, 
A roused vengeance sets him new a-work ; 

And never did the Cyclops’ hammers fall 

On Mars’s armour, forg’d for proof eterne, 

With less remorse than Pyrrbus’ bleeding sword 
Now falls on Priam. — 

Out, out, thou strumpet, Fortune! All you gods, 
In general synod, take away her power; 

Break all the spokes and fellies from her wheel, 
And bow] the round nave down the hill of heaven, 
As low as to the fiends! * 


50 For the meaning of rack see The Tempest, Act iv. se. 1, 
note 16; also, 3 Hanry. VI., Act ii. se. 1, note 4. H. 

51 To the remarks of Schlegel on this speech should be added 
those of Coleridge, as the two appear to have been a coincidence 
of thought, and not a borrowing either way: “This admirable 
substitution of the epic for the dramatic, giving such reality to the 


268 Oe HAMLET, ACT If, 


Pol. This is too long. 

Ham. It shall to the barber’s, with your beard. — 
’Pr’ythee, say on: —He’s for a jig,’ or a tale of 
bawdry, or he sleeps. — Say on: come to Hecuba. 


1 Play. But who, O! who had seen the mobled 
queen — 


Ham. The mobled queen? | 
Pol. That’s good; mobled queen is good. 


1 Play. Run barefoot up and down, threatening the 
flames 
With bisson rheum ;*4 a clout upon that head, 
Where late the diadem stood ; and, for a robe, 
About her lank and all o’er-teemed loins, 
A blanket, in th’ alarm of fear caught up;— 
Who this had seen, with tongue in venom steep’d 
’Gainst fortune’s state would treason have pronounc’d: 


dramatic diction of Shakespeare’s own dialogue, and authorized, 
too, by the actual style of the tragedies before his time, is well 
worthy of notice. The fancy, that a burlesque was intended, 
sinks below criticism: the lines, as epic narrative, are superb. — 
In the thoughts, and even in the separate parts of the diction, this 
description is highly poetical : in truth, taken by itself, that is its 
fault, that it is too poetical !— the language of lyric vehemence 
and epic pomp, and not of the drama. But if Shakespeare had 
made the diction truly dramatic, where would have been the con- 
trast between Hamlet and the play in Hamlet?” H. 

52 Giga, in Italian, was a fiddle, or crowd; gigaro, a fiddler, 
or minstrel. Hence a jig was a ballad, or ditty, sung to the fid- 
dle. “Frottola, a countrie gigge, or round, or country song or 
wanton verse.”’ As the itinerant minstrels proceeded they made 
it a kind of farcical dialogue ; and at length it came to signify a: 
short merry interlude: « Farce, the jigg at the end of an enter- 
Jude, wherein some pretie knaverie is acted.” 

°3 Thus the first quarto; the other quartos have a woe instead 
of O! who. The folio agrees with the first quarto, except that it 
misprints inobled for mobled.— Mobled is hastily or carelessly 
dressed. To mob or mab is still used in the north of England for 
to dress in a slatternly manner ; and Coleridge says « mob-eap is 
still a word in common use for a morning cap.” H. 

°4 Bisson is blind. Bisson rheum is therefore blinding tears 
See Coriolanus, Act ii. sc. 1, note 5; and Act iii. se. 1, note 11. 


SC. IL. - PRINCE OF DENMARK... ~~. 209 


But if the gods themselves did see her then, 

When she saw Pyrrhus make malicious sport 

In mincing with his sword her husband’s limbs ; 

The instant burst of clamour that she made 

(Unless things mortal move them not at all) 

Would have made milch the burning eye of heaven,” 
And passion in the gods. 


Pol. Look, whether he has not turn’d his colour, 
and has tears in’s eyes. — Pr’ythee, no more. 

Ham. "Tis well; Vl have thee speak out the rest 
of this soon. — Good my lord, will you see the play- 
ers well bestow’d? Do youhear? let them be well 
us’d; for they are the abstracts and brief chronicles 
of the time: after your death you were better have 
a bad epitaph, than their ill report while you live. 

Pol. My lord, I will use them according to their 
desert. 

Ham. Odd’s bodikin, man! much better: Use 
every man after his desert, and who shall ’scape 
whipping? . Use them after your own honour’and 
dignity: the less they deserve, the more merit is in 
your bounty. Take them in. 

Pol. Come, sirs. [Exit, with some of the Players. 

Ham. Follow him, friends: we’ll hear a play to- 
morrow.— Dost thou hear me, old friend? can you 
play the murder of Gonzago? 

1 Play. Ay, my lord. 

Ham. We'll have’t to-morrow night. You could, 
for a need, study a speech of some dozen or sixteen 
Jines, which I would set down, and insert in’t, could 
you not? 


55 By a hardy poetical licence this expression means, “ Would 
have filled with tears the burning eye of heaven.” We have 
« Lemosus, milch-hearted,” in Huloet’s and Lyttleton’s Diction- 
aries. It is remarkable that, in old Italian, lattuoso is used fot 
luttuoso, in the same metaphorical manner. 


23 * 


a alias 


210 an HAMLET, ACT II. 


a Play. “Ay, my lord. 
Ham. Very well. — Follow that lord ; and look 
-you mock him not. [Ext Player.|— My good 
friends [ To Ros. and Guit.] I'll leave you till night: 
you are welcome to Elsinore. 

Ros. Good my lord! 

[Exeunt RosencRANTzZ and GUILDENSTERN. 

Ham. Ay,so, God be wi’ you. — Now I am alone. 
O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I! 
Is it not monstrous, that this player here, 
But in a fiction, in a dream of passion, 
Could force his soul so to his own conceit, 
That, from her working, all his visage wann’d 3 
Tears in his eyes, distraction in’s aspect, 
A broken voice, and his whole function suiting 
With forms to his conceit? And all for nothing! 
For Hecuba! 
What’s Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba,*® 
That he should weep for her? What would he do, 
Had he the motive and the cue®*’ for passion, 
That I have? He would drown the stage with tears, 
And cleave the general ear with horrid speech; 
Make mad the guilty, and appal the free, 
Confound the ignorant, and amaze, indeed, 
The very faculties of eyes and ears. Yet I, 
A dull and muddy-mettled rascal, peak, 
Like John a-dreams,°** unpregnant of my cause, 


58 So the folio. and first quarto; the other quartos, “or he to 
her,” instead of, “or he to Hecuba.” H. 

37 That is, the hint or prompt-word, a technical phrase among 
players. “ A prompter,” says Florio, « one who keepes the booke 
for the plaiers, and teacheth them, or ‘scholars their kue.”’ 

88 This John was probably distinguished as a sleepy, apathetic 
fellow, a sort of dreaming or droning simpleton or flunkey. The 
only other mention of Him that has reached us, is in Armin’s Nest 
of Ninnies, 1608: « His name is John, indeed, says the cinnick, 
but peither John a-nods nor John a-dreams, yet either, as you take 
it.” H, ee 


<< 


SC. IL. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 271 


And can say nothing; no, not for a king, 

Upon whose property, and most dear life, 

A damn’d defeat was made.°* Am I a coward ? 

Who-ealls me villain? breaks my pate across? 

Plucks off my beard, and blows it in my face? 

Tweaks me by th’ nose? gives me the lie i’the throat, 

As deep as to the lungs? Who does me this? 

Ha! 

*Zounds! I should take it; for it cannot be, 

But [ am pigeon-liver’d, and lack gall 

To make oppression bitter ;°° or, ere this, 

I should have fatted all the region kites 

With this slave’s offal. Bloody, bawdy villain! 

Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless® yil- 
lain! 

O, vengeance ! 

Why, what an ass am I? This is most brave ; 

That I, the son of the dear murdered,*® 

Prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell, 


59 Defeat was frequently used fn the sense of undo or take away 
by our old writers. Thus Chapman in his Revenge for Honour: 
«“ That he might meantime make a sure defeat on our good aged 
father’s life.’ 

60 Of course the meaning is, “lack gall to make me feel the 
bitterness of oppression.” There were no need of saying this, 
but that Collier, on the strength of his second folio, would read 
transgression, and Singer, on the strength of nothing, aggression. 
Dyce justly pronounces the alteration “ nothing less than villain- 
ous.” Hu. 

61 Kindless is unnatural. See The Merchant of Venice, Act i. 
se. 3, note 7. 

62 Thus the folio; some copies of the undated quarto, and the 
quarto of 1611, read, « the son of a dear futher murder’d.” ‘The 
quartos of 1604 and 1605 are without father; and that of 1603 
reads, “the son of my dear father.’ There can be no question 
that the reading we have adopted, besides having the most au- 
thority, is much the more beautiful and expressive, though modern 
editors commonly take the other. — The words, “ O, vengeance!” 
are found only in the folio. . H. 


272 HAMLET, ACT IL. 


Must, like a whore, unpack my heart with words, 

And fall a-cursing like a very drab, : 

A scullion! Fie upon’t! foh! 

About, my brain!** Humph! I have heard, 

That guilty creatures, sitting at a play, 

Have by the very cunning of the scene 

Been struck so to the soul, that presently 

They have proclaim’d their malefactions ; 

For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak 

With most miraculous organ. T’ll have these players 

Play something like the murder of my father, 

Before mine uncle: Ill observe his looks; 

Ill tent him to the quick: if he do blench,® 

I know my course. The spirit that I have seen 

May be a devil: and the devil hath power 

I” assume a pleasing shape ;.yea, and, perhaps, 

Out of my weakness, and my melancholy, 

As he is very potent with such spirits, 

Abuses me to damn me. I'll have grounds 

More relative than this: °° the play’s the thing, 

Wherein I’ll catch the congcience of the king. 
| [ Exit. 


63 « About, my brain,” is nothing more than “to work, my 
brain.” The phrase, to go about a thing, is still common. 

64 Several instances of the kind are collected by Thomas Hey- 
wood in his Apology for Actors. 

> 'To tent was to probe, to search a wound. ‘To bdlench is to 
shrink or start. 

86 « More relative” is more correspondent, more conjunctive 
with the cause ; that is, more certain. 'The sense is well explained 
by the reading of the first quarto: «I will have sounder proofs.” 
— That Hamlet was not alone in the suspicion here started, ap- 
pears from Sir Thomas Browne’s Religio Medici: «1 believe that. 
those apparitions and ghosts of departed persons are not the wan- 
dering souls of men, but the unquiet walks of devils, prompting 
and suggesting us unto mischief, blood, and villainy 3 instilling and 
stealing into our hearts that the blessed spirits are not at rest in 
their graves, but wander, solicitous of the affairs of the world, 


PRINCE OF DENMARK. 273 


ACT? IIT. 


SCENE I. A Room in the Castle. 


Enter the King, the Queen, PoLontus, OPHELIA, 
ROSENCRANTZ, and GUILDENSTERN. 


King. And can you, by no drift of conference,’ 
Get from him why he puts on this confusion ; 
Grating so harshly all his days of quiet 

With turbulent and dangerous lunacy ? 

Ros. He does confess, he feels himself distracted ; 
But from what cause he will by no means speak. 

Guil. Nor do we find him forward to be sounded; 
But with a crafty madness keeps aloof, 

When we would bring him on to some confession 
Of his true state. 

Queen. Did he receive you well ? 

Ros. Most like a gentleman. 

Guil. But with much forcing of his disposition. 

Ros. Niggard of question ; but, of our demands, 
Most free in his reply. 

Qucen. Did you assay him to any pastime? 

Ros. Madam, it so fell out, that certain players 
We o’er-raught on the way :* of these we told him ; 
And there did seem in him a kind of joy 
To hear of it. They are about the court ;° 


But, that those phantasms appear often, and do frequent ceme- 
teries, charnel-houses, and churches, it is because those are the 
dormitories of the dead, where the devil, like an insolent cham- 
pion, beholds with pride the spoils and trophies of his victory in 
Adam.” H. 

1 So the quartos ; the folio, circumstance. 

2 Ocr-raught is overtook. 

3 Thus the folio; the quartos, «They are here.” H. 

18 


Q74 i HAMLET, ACT Ul 


And, as I think, they have already order 
This.night to play before him. 

Pol. . "Tis most true: 
And he beseech’d me to entreat your majesties 
To hear and see the matter. . 

King. With all my heart ; and it doth much con- 

tent me 
To hear him so inclin’d. — 
Good gentlemen, give him a further edge, . 
And drive his purpose on to these delights. 

Ros. We shall, my lord. 

[Exeunt Rosencrantz and GUILDENSTERN. 
ting. Sweet Gertrude, leave us too: 
For we have closely sent for Hamlet hither ; 
That he, as ’twere by accident, may here. 
Affront Ophelia :* 
Her father and myself, lawful espials,° 
Will so bestow ourselves, that, seeing, unseen, 
We may of their encounter frankly judge ; 
And gather by him, as he is behavy’d, 
If’t be th’ affliction of his love, or no, 
That thus he suffers for. 

Queen. I shall obey you.— 
And, for your part, Ophelia, I do wish 
That your good beauties be the happy cause 
Of Hamlet’s wildaess: so shall I hope your virtues 
Will bring him to his wonted way again, 

To both your honours. , 
Oph. _ Madam, I wish it may. 
[Exit Queen. 


4 That is, meet her, encounter her; affrontare, Ital. See The 
Winter’s Tale, Act v. sc. 1, note 5. 

® That is, lawful spies. « An espiall in warres, a scoutwatche, 
a beholder, a viewer.” — BarET. — The two words are fc und only 
in the folio. 


8C.1 ~~ ~=- PRINCE OF DENMARK. O75 
Pol. Ophelia, walk you here. ean so 
please you, 
We will bestow our selves. — [To Opue.] Read on 
this book ; 
That show of stich an exercise may colour 
Your loneliness. — We are oft to blame in this, — 
’Tis too much prov’d, —that; with devotion’s visage, 
And pious action, we do sugar o’er 
The devil himself. 
King. O, ’tis too true! — 
[Aszde.] How smart a lash that speech doth give 
my conscience ! 


‘The harlot’s cheek, beautied with plastering art, 


Is not more ugly to the thing that helps it, 
Than is my deed to my most painted word: 
O, heavy burden! 
Pol. I hear him coming: Jet’s withdraw, my lord. 
[Exeunt King and Powontvs. 


Enter HAMLET. 


Ham. To be, or not to be, that is the question: 

Whether ’tis nobler in the mind, to suffer 

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune ; 

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, 

And, by opposing, end them? — To die, — to 
sleep, — 

No more ;— and, by a sleep, to say we end 

The heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks 

That flesh is heir to, — ’tis a consummation 

Devoutly to be wish’d. To die, —to sleep;— 

To sleep! perchance, to dream ;— ay, there’s the 
rub 3 

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come, 

When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,°® 


6 That is, the tumult and bustle of this life. It:is remarkable 


276 HAMLET, ACT III 


- Must give us pause. There’s the respect’ 
That. makes calamity of so long life: 
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,® 
The oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely, 
The pangs of dispriz’d love,’ the law’s delay, 
The insolence of office, and the spurns 
That patient merit of the unworthy takes, 
When he himself might his quietus make 
With a bare bodkin ?’° who would fardels bear, 
To grunt and sweat under a weary life, 
But that the dread of something after death — 
The undiscover’d country, from whose bourn 
No traveller returns — puzzles the will, 
And makes us rather bear those ills we have, 
Than fly to others that we know not of ? 
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all; 
And thus the native hue of resolution 
Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought ; 


that under garbuglio, which has the same meaning in Italian as. 
our coil, Florio has “a pecke of troubles ;” of which Shake- 
speare’s “sea of troubles” is only an aggrandized idea. 

7 That is, the consideration. 'This is Shakespeare’s most usual 
sense of the word. 

8 Time, for the time, is a very usual expression with our old 
writers. In Cardanus Comfort, by Thomas Bedingfield, 1599, is 
a description of the miseries of life strongly resembling that in the 
text : “ Hunger, thirste, sleape, not plentiful or quiet as deade men 
have, heate in somer, colde in winter, disorder of tyme, terroure 
of warres, controlment of parents, cares of wedlocke, studye for 
children, slouthe of servaunts, contention of sutes, and that which 
is most of all, the condycyon of tyme wherein honestye is disduyned 
as folye, and crafle is honoured as wisdome.” 

® Thus the folio; the quartos have despis’d instead of dispriz’d. 

H. 

*9 The allusion is to the term quietus est, used in settling ac- 
eounts at exchequer audits. Thus in Sir Thomas Overbury’s 
character of a Franklin: « Lastly, to end him, he cares not when 
his end comes ; he needs not feare his audit, for his quietus is in 
heaven.” Bodkin was the ancient term for a small dagger. 


BCS: PRINCE OF DENMARK. Vit 


And enterprises of great pith and moment,” 
With this regard, their currents turn awry, 
__ And‘lose: the name of action, — Soft you, now! 
~The fair : Ophelia. — Nymph, i in thy orisons 
Be all my sins remember’d.”” 
Oph. Good my lord, 
How does your honour for this many a day? 
Ham. \ humbly thank you; well, well, well.'? 
Oph. My lord, I have remembrances of yours, 
That I have longed Jong to re-deliver ; 
I pray you, now receive them. 
Ham. No, not I; 
] never gave you aught. 
Oph. My ride lord, I now right well you 
did ;’ 
And, with them, words of so sweet breath compos’d 
As made the things more rich: their perfume lost, 
Take these again; for, to the noble mind, 
Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind. 
There, my lord. 
Ham. Ha, ha! are you honest? 
Oph. My lord! 
Ham. Are you fair ?"° 


’ 


1 The quartos have pitch instead of pith. The folio misprints 
away for awry, in the next line. In the third line before, the words, 
“of us all,” are from the folio. H. 

12 This is a touch of nature. Hamlet, at the sight of Ophelia, 
does not immediately recollect that he is to personate madness, 
but makes an address grave and solemn, such as the foregoing 
meditation excited in his thoughts. — JouNson. 

13 Thus the folio ; the quartos have well but once. The repe- 
tition seems very apt and forcible, as suggesting the opposite of 
what the word means. H. 

14 The quartos have “ you Mhows ” instead of «I know.” We 
scarce know which to prefer; but, on the whole, the folio reading 
seems to have more of delicacy; and at least equal feeling. 

H. 

18 Here it is evident that the penetrating Hamlet perceives, from 


VOL. X. 


PC ul ite le 
P PNG | see 


278 oe HAMLET, . . . ACT ITI. 


Oph. What means your lordship ? 

Ham. That if you be honest and fair, your hone 
esty should admit no discourse to your beauty.?® 

Oph. Could beauty, my lord, have better com- 
merce than with honesty ? 

Ham. Ay, truly; for the power of beauty will 
sooner transform honesty from what it is to a bawd, 
than the force of honesty can translate beauty into 
his likeness: this was sometime a paradox, but now 
the time gives it proof. I did love you once. 

Oph. Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so, 

Ham. You should not have believed me ; for vir- 
tue cannot so inoculate: our old stock, but we shall 
relish of it. I loved you not. 

Oph. I was the more deceived."” 

Ham. Get thee to a nunnery: why would’st 


the strange and forced manner of Ophelia, that the sweet girl was 
not acting a part of ber own, but was a decoy; and his after 
speeches are not so much directed to her as to the listeners and 
spies. Such a discovery in a mood so anxious and irritable ae- 
counts for a certain harshness in him ;— and yet a wild up-work- 
ing of love, sporting with opposites in a wilful self-tormenting strain 
of irony, is perceptible throughout. “TI did love you once,” — 
“T Joved you not :””—and particularly in his enumeration of the 
faults of the sex from which Ophelia is so free, that the mere free- 
dom therefrom constitutes her character. Note Shakespeare’s 
charm of composing the female character by absence of charac- 
ters, that is, marks and out-juttings.—CoLERIDGE, H. 

16 That is, “ your honesty should not admit your beauty to any 
discourse with it.’’ — The quartos have merely you instead of your — 
honestys— In the next speech, the folio substitutes your for with. 
— It should be noted, that in these speeches Hamlet refers, not to 
Ophelia personally, but to the sex in general. So, especially, when 
he says, “I have heard of your paintings too,” he does not mean 
that Ophelia paints, but that the use of paintings is common with 
her sex. H. 

17 Mrs. Jameson, speaking of this and the preceding speech of 
Ophelia, says, — “ Those who have ever heard Mrs. Siddons reaa 

he play of Hamlet cannot forget the world of meaning, of love, 
of sorrow, of despair, conveyed in these two simple phrases.” 
H.- 


SC.I. - , PRINCE OF DENMARK. 279 


thou be a breeder of sinners? I am myself indif- 
ferent honest; but yet I could accuse me of such 
things, that it were better my mother had not 
borne me: I am very proud, revengeful, ambitious 5 
with more offences at my beck, than I have thoughts 
to put them in, imagination to give them shape, or 
time to act them in. What should such fellows as 
I do crawling between heaven and earth! We are 
arrant knaves, all; believe noné of us: Go thy ways 
to a nunnery. Where’s your father? 

Oph. At home, my lord. 

Ham. Let the doors be shut upon him ; that he 
may play the fool no where but in’s own house. 
Farewell. 

Oph. O, help him, you sweet heavens! 

Ham. Vf thou dost marry, V’ll give thee this 
plague for thy dowry: Be thou as chaste as ice, as 
pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny. Get 
thee to a nunnery; farewell: Or, if thou wilt needs 
marry, marry a fool; for wise men know well enough 
what monsters you make of them. To a nunnery, 
go; and quickly too. Farewell. 

Oph. Heavenly powers, restore him ! 

Ham. J have heard of your paintings too, well 
enough; God hath given you one face,’* and you 
make yourselves another: you jig, you amble, and 
you lisp, and nickname God’s creatures, and make 
your wantonness your ignorance.” Go to; Pll no 
more on’t: it hath made me mad. I say, we will 
have no more marriages: those that are married 


18 The folio, for paintings, has pratlings ; and for face has pace. 


. Too is from the folio. 


19 « You mistake by wanton affectation, and pretend to mistake 
by ignorance.” 


289 - HAMLET, - ACT IIL 


already, all but one, shall live; the rest shall keep 

as they are. To a nunnery, go.” [ Exit 
Oph. O, what a noble mind is here o’erthrown ! 

The courtier’s, soldier’s, scholar’s eye, tongue, sword. 

Th’ expectancy and rose of the fair state, 

The glass of fashion, and the mould of form,*? 

Th’ observ’d of all observers, quite, quite down ! 

And I, of ladies most deject and wretched, 

That suck’d the honey of his music vows, 

Now see that noble and most sovereign reason, 

Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh; 

That unmatch’d form and feature of blown youth, 

Blasted with ecstacy.*? -O, woe is me! 

To have seen what I have seen, see what I.see ! 


Re-enter the King and Povontvs. 


King. Love! his affections do not that way tend ; 
Nor what he spake, though it lack’d form a little, 
Was not like madness. There’s something in his 

soul, 
O’er which his melancholy sits on brood ; 
And, I do doubt, the hatch and the disclose 
Will be some danger: which for to prevent, 
I have, in quick determination, 
Thus set it down: He shall with speed to England, 
For the demand of our neglected tribute: 


20 Observe this dallying with the inward purpose, characteristic 
of one who had not brought his mind to the steady acting-point. 
He would fain sting the uncle’s mind ; — but to stab his body! — 
The soliloquy of Ophelia, which follows, is the perfection of love, 
— so exquisitely unselfish ! — CoLERIDGE. 

*1 The model by whom all endeavoured to form themselves. 
The quartos have expectation instead of expectancy. 

22 Ecstacy was ofien used for insanity or any alienation of 
mind. See The Tempest, Act iii. sc. 3, note 12. — The quartos 
have stature instead of feature, and “what noble” for “that 
noble ” H. 


a SOD Ira. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 281 


Haply, the seas, and countries different, 

With variable objects, shall expel 

This something-settled matter in his heart ; 

Whereon his brains still beating, puts him thus 

From fashion of himself. What think you on’t? 
Pol. It shall do well: but yet do I believe, 

The origin and commencement of his grief 

Sprung from neglected love.— How now, Ophelia ! 

You need not tell us what lord Hamlet said; 

We heard it all.— My lord, do as you please ; 

But, if you hold it fit, after the play 

Let his. queen mother all alone intreat him 

To show his griefs ; let her be round with him ;* 

And I'll be plac’d, so please you, in the ear 

Of all their conference. If she find him not, 

To England send him; or confine him where 

Your wisdom best shall think. 


King. It shall be so: 
Madness in great ones must not unwatch’d go. 
[ Exeunt. 


SCENE II. A Hall in the Same. 


Enter Hamurt, and certain Players. 


Ham. Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pro- 
: nounc’d it to you, trippingly on the tongue; but if 
you mouth it, as many of your players do,’ I had as 
lief the town crier spoke my lines. Nor do not 


23 To be round with any one, is to be plain-spoken, downright ; 
often so used. H. 

1 Thus the folio and first quarto; the other quartos have our 
instead of your. — For, “I had as lief the town crier spoke,” the 
first quarto reads, “I had rather hear a town bull bellow.” — 
“This dialogue of Hamlet with the players,” says Coleridge, “ is 
one of the happiest instances of Shakespeare’s power of diversi- 
fying the scene while he is carrying on the plot.” H. 

ca 


QR2 HAMLET, . ACT Ill. 


saw the air too much with your hand, thus; but use 
all gently: for in the very torrent, tempest, and, as 
I may say, whirlwind of your passion, you must 
acquire and beget a temperance, that may give it 
smoothness. O! it offends me to the soul, to hear 
a robustious periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to 
tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the ground- 
lings;” who, for the most part, are capable of 
nothing but inexplicable dumb shows, and noise: 
I would have such a fellow whipp’d for o’er-doing 
Termagant ; it out-herods Herod:* pray you, avoid 
it. 

1 Play. I warrant your honour. 

Ham. Be not too tame neither, but let your own 
discretion be your tutor: suit the action to the 
word, the word to the action; with this special 
observance, that you o’erstep not the modesty of 
nature: for any thing so overdone is from the pur- 
pose of playing, whose end, both at the first and 
now, was and is, to hold, as ’twere, the mirrour up 


* Our ancient theatres were far from the commodious, elegant 
structures which later times have seen. ‘The pit was, truly, what 
its name denotes, an unfloored space in the area of the house, 
sunk considerably beneath the level of the stage. Hence this part 
of the audience were called groundlings. Jonson, in the Induc- 
tion to Bartholomew Fair, calls them “the wnderstanding gentle- 
men of the ground ; ” and Shirley, ““ grave unilerstanders. 7 

3 Termagaunt is the name given in old romances to the tem- 
pestuous g god of the Saracens. He is usually joined with Mahound 
or Mahomet. Davenant derives the name from ter magnus. And 
resolute Jobn Florio calls him « Termigisto, a great boaster, 
quarreller, killer, tamer or ruler of the universe; the child of the 
earthquake and of the thunder, the brother of death.” Hence 
this personage was introduced into the old mysteries and morali- 
ties as a demon of outrageous and violent demeanour ; or, as Bale 
says, “ Termagauntes altogether; and very devils incarnate.” — 
The murder of the innocents was a favourite subject for a mys- 
tery ; and wherever Herod is introduced, he plays the part of a 
vaunting braggart, a tyrant of tyrants, and does indeed outdo Ter- 
nagan. 


sc. IL. PRINCE OF DENMARK. » 283 


to nature ; to show virtue her own feature, scorn 
her own image, and the very age and body of the 
time, his form and pressure.* Now, this overdone, 
or come tardy off, though it make the unskilful 
laugh, cannot but make the judicious grieve; the 
censure of which one must, in your allowance,° 
o’erweigh a whole theatre of others. O! there be 
players, that I have seen play, —and heard others 
praise, and that highly, —not to speak it profanely, 
that, neither having the accent of Christians, nor 
the gait of Christian, pagan, nor man, have so 
strutted and bellowed, that I have thought some 
of nature’s journeymen had made men,°® and not 
made them well, they imitated humanity so abomi- 
nably. 

1 Play. [hope we have reform’d that indifferently 
with us. 

Ham. O! reform it altogether. And let those 
that play your clowns speak no more than is set 
down for them: for there be of them, that will 
themselves laugh, to set on some quantity of barren 
spectators to laugh too; though in the mean time 
some necessary question of the play be then to be 
considered: that’s villainous, and shows a most 
pitiful ambition in the fool that uses it. Go, make 
you ready. — [Exeunt Players. 


> 

4 Pressure is impression, resemblance. 

5 That is, approval, estimation. 

6 A friend suggests whether men should. not have the before it, 
or else be them. This would give a very different sense, limiting 
it from men in general to the particular players in question. Per- 
haps it may be doubted whether Hamlet means that he had thought 
the players themselves to be the second-hand workmanship of na- 
ture, from their imitating humanity so falsely, or whether he had 
taken their imitation as true, and so extended his thought of second- 
hand workmanship over al] mankind. However, our best road to 
what he means, is by what he says, probably. Malone would read 
them H. 


284 ° HAMLET, ACT Iil. 


Enter Potontus, Rosencrantz, and GUILDEN- 
STERN. 


How now, my lord! will the king hear this piece 
of work? ‘ 
Pol. And the queen too, and that presently. 
Ham. Bid the players make haste. — 
[ Ext PoLontus. 
Will you two help to hasten them 1? 
Both. We will, my lord.’ 
[Exeunt RosENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN. 
Ham. What, ho! Horatio! 


Enter Horatio. 


Hor. Here, sweet lord, at your service. 

Ham. Horatio, thou art e’en as just a man 
As e’er my conversation cop’d withal. 

Flor. O! my dear lord, — 

Ham. Nay, do not think I flatter ; 
For what advancement may I hope from thee, 
That no revenue hast, but thy good spirits, 

To feed and clothe thee? Why should the poor be 
flatter’d ? 

No; let the candied tongue lick absurd pomp, 

And crook the pregnant hinges of the knee,° 

Where thrift may follow fawning. Dost thou hear? 

Since my dear soul was mistress of her choice, 

And could of men distinguish, her election 

Hath seal’d thee for herself :° for thou hast been 

As one, in suffering all, that suffers nothing ; 


7 So the folio; the quartos, « Ros. Ay, my lord.” . H. 
8 Pregnant is quick, ready. 
® Thus the folio; the quartos make election the object of dis- 
tinguish, and use She as the subject of hath seal’d. — In the fourth 
.ine after, the quartos have co-meddled instead of co-mingled. 
H. 


iT ——— > > < , t. 
hee 
een 


SOy Tat PRINCE OF DENMARK. 285 


A man, that fortune’s buffets and rewards 
Hast ta’en with equal thanks: and blest are those, 
Whose blood and judgment are.so well co-mingled, 
That they are not a pipe for fortune’s finger 
To sound what stop she please. Give me that 
man * 
That is not passion’s slave, and I will wear him 
In my heart’s core, ay, in my heart of heart, 
As I do thee. — Something too much of this. — 
There is a play to-night before the king ; 
One scene of it comes near the circumstance, 
Which I have told thee, of my father’s death. 
I pr’ythee, when thou seest that act a-foot, 
Even with the very comment of thy soul’? 
Observe my uncle: if his occulted guilt 
Do not itself unkennel in one speech, 
It is a damned ghost that we have seen 5 
And my imaginations are as foul 
As Vulcan’s stithy."’ Give him heedful note: 
For I mine eyes will rivet to his face ; 
And, after, we will both our judgments join 
In censure of his seeming. 
Hor. Well, my lord: 
If he steal aught the whilst this play is playing, 
And scape detecting, I will pay the theft. 
Ham. They are coming to the play: I must be 
idle ; 
Get you a place. 


10 That is, with the most intense direction of every faculty. 
The folio has “ my soul,” which Knight and Collier strangely pre- 
fer, on the ground that “ Hamlet is putting Horatio in his place, 
for the purpose of watching the king.’”’ One would think that Ham- 
let, though he “must be idle,” that is, appear so, means to stand 
in his own place, for that purpose ; else why should he say, —“1 
mine eyes will rivet to his face 7” H. 

11 ‘That is, Vulean’s workshop or smithy ; stith being an anvil. 


286 HAMLET, ACT Ill 


Danish March. A Flourish. Enter the King, the 
Queen, Pouonius, OPHELIA, ROSENCRANTZ, 
GUILDENSTERN, .and Others. 


King. How fares our cousin Hamlet ? 
Ham. Excellent, i’faith; of the chameleon’s dish. 
I eat the air, promise-cramm’d. You cannot feed 
capons so. 
King. 1 have nothing with this answer, Hamlet ; 
these words are not mine. 
Ham. No, nor mine now. —[ To Poton.]| My lord, 
you play’d once i’the university, you say? 
Pol. That did I, my lord ; and was accounted a 
good actor. 
Ham. And what did you enact ? 
Pol. 1 did enact Julius Cesar: I was kill’d 1’the 
Capitol ; Brutus kill’d me.” 
Ham. \t was a brute part of him, to kill so cap- 
ital a calf there. — Be the players ready 1 
- Ros. Ay, my lord; they stay upon your patience.) 
Queen. Come hither, my dear Hamlet, sit by me. 
Ham. No, good mother, here’s metal more at- 
tractive. 
Pol. [To the King.] O ho! do you mark that? 
Ham. Uady, shall I lie in your lap? 
[Lying down at OpHELIA’s Feet. 
Oph. No, my lord. 


12 A Latin play on Cesar’s death was performed at Christ 
Choreh, Oxford, in 1582. Malone thinks that there was an Eng 
lish play on the same subject previous to Shakespeare’s. Cesar 
was killed in Pompey’s portico, and not in the Capitol: but the 
error is at least as old as Chaucer’s time. 

13 That is, they wait upon your sufferance or will. Johnson 
would have changed the word to pleasure; but Shakespeare has 
jt in a similar sense in The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act ili. se. 
1: « And think my patience more than thy desert is privilege for 
thy departure hence.” 


r 
; 
] 
i 


Sc. Il. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 287 


Ham. 1 mean, my head upon your lap?"* 

Oph. Ay, my lord. 

Ham. Do you think, I meant country matters ? 

Oph. I think nothing, my lord. 

Ham. That’s a fair Bor aaa to lie between maids’ 
legs. 

Oph. What is, my lord ? 

Ham. Nothing. 

Oph. You are merry, my lord. 

Ham. Who, 12 

Oph. Ay, my lord. 

Ham. O God! your only jig-maker.’® What 
should a man do, but be merry? for, look you, how 
cheerfully my mother looks, and my father died 
within these two hours. 

Oph. Nay, ’tis twice two months, my lord. 

, Ham. So long? Nay, then let the devil wear 
black, for I'll have a suit of sables.’° O heavens ! 
die two months ago, and not forgotten yet?) Then 
there’s hope, a great man’s memory may outlive 
his life. half a year: But, by’r-lady, he must build 
churches then, or else shall he suffer not thinking 
on, with the hobby-horse ; whose epitaph is, ‘For, 
O! for, O! the hobby-horse is forgot.” "7 


« 14 This question and the answer to it are only in the folio. 
H. 

15 See Act ii. sc. 2, note 51. 

16 Hanmer would read ermine, on the ground that sable is itself 
a mourning colour. But sables were among the most rich and 
costly articles of dress ; and a statute of the reign of Henry VIII. 
made it unlawful for any one under the rank of an earl to wear 
them. The meaning is well explained by Knight, thus: «If Ham- 
Jet had said, ‘ Nay, then let the devil wear black, for I’ll have a 
suit of ermine,’ he would merely have said, ‘ Let the devil be in 
mourning, for I’ll be fine.’ But, as it is, he says, ‘Let the devil 
wear the real colours of grief, but I'll be magnificent in a garb 
that only has a facing of something like grief.’ ” H. 

17 Alluding to the “expulsion of the hobby-horse from the Mays 


288 HAMLET, ACT III. 


Trumpets sound. The Dumb Show enters. 

Enter a King and a Queen, very lovingly ; the Queen em- 
bracing him. She kneels, and makes show of protestation 
unto him. He takes her wp, and declines his head upon 
her neck ; lays him down upon a bank of flowers: she, 
seeing him asleep, leaves him. Anon comes in a Fellow, 
takes off his crown, kisses it, and pours poison in the 
King’s ears, and exit. The Queen returns, finds the 
King dead, and makes passionate action. ‘T'he Poisoner, 
with some two or three Mutes, comes in again, seeming fo 
lament with her. The dead body is carried away. The 
Poisoner woos the Queen with gifts: she seems loth and 
unwilling awhile, but: in. the end accepts his love. 

[Exeunt. 
Oph. What means this, my lord? 
Ham. Marry, this is miching mallecho; it means 
mischief.’® ‘ 
Oph. Belike, this show imports the argument of 
the play. 


Enter Prologue. 


Ham. We shall know by this fellow: the players 
cannot keep counsel ; they’il tell all. 

Oph. Will he tell us what this show meant ? 

Ham. Ay, or any show that you’ll show him: Be 
not you asham’d to show, he’ll not shame to tell you 
what it means. 

Oph. You are naught, you are naught: I'll mark 
the play. 


games, where he had long been a favourite. See Love’s Labour’s 
Lost, Act iii. sc. 1, note 6. H. 

18 Miching mallecho is lurking mischief, or evil doing. To mich 
for to skulk, to lurk, was an old English verb in common use in 
Shakespeare’s time ; and muallecho or malhecho, misdeed, he has 
borrowed from the Spanish. 


SC.1l 8 PRINCE OF DENMARK. 289 


Pro. For us, and for our tragedy, 
Here stooping to your clemency, 
We beg your hearing patiently. 


Ham. Is this a prologue, or the posy of a ring? 
Oph. ’Tis brief, my lord, 
Ham. As woman’s love. 


Enter a King and a Queen. 

King. Full thirty times hath Phebus’ cart gone round ® 
Neptune’s salt wash, and Tellus’ orbed ground; 
And thirty dozen moons, with borrow’d sheen, 
About the world have times twelve thirties been; 
Since love our hearts, and Hymen did our hands, 
Unite commutual in most sacred bands. 

‘Queen. So many journeys may the sun and moon 
Make us again count o’er, ere love be done! 
But, woe is me! you are so sick of late, 
So far from cheer, and from your fornier state, 
That I distrust you. Yet, though I distrust, 
Discomfort you, my lord, it nothing must: 
For women’s fear and love hold quantity ; °° 
In neither aught, or in extremity. 
Now, what my love is, proof hath made you know; 
And as my love is siz’d, my fear is so. 
Where love is great, the littlest doubts are fear ; 
Where little fears grow great, great love grows there.”! 

King. ’Faith, I must leave thee, love, and shortly too; 
My operant powers their functions leave to do: 


19 Cart, car, and chariot were used indiscriminately. — “ The 
stye,”’ says Coleridge, « of the interlude here is distinguished from 
the real dialogue by rhyme, as in the first interview with the play- 
ers by epic verse.” H, 

20 So the folio; the quartos have a different reading, giving two 
lines for one: 


“ For women fear too much, even as they lore ; 
And women’s fear and love hold quantity.” H. 


21 The last two lines of this speech are not in the folio, # 
| 19 


290 HAMLET, ACT IIL 


And thou shalt live in this fair world behind, 
Honour’d, belov’d; and, haply, one as kind 
For husband shalt thou — 

Queen. O, confound the rest! 
Such love must needs be treason in my breast: 
In second husband let me be accurst! 

None wed the second, but who kill’d the first. 


Ham. [Aside.] That’s wormwood. 


Queen. The instances, that second marriage move, 
Are base respects of thrift, but none of love: 
A second time I kill my husband dead, 
When second husband kisses me in bed. 
King. I do believe you think what now you speak ; 
But what we do determine ‘oft we break. 
Purpose is but the slave to memory, 
Of violent birth, but poor validity ; 
Which now, like fruit unripe, sticks on the tree, 
But fall, unshaken, when they mellow be. 
Most necessary ’tis, that we forget 
To pay ourselves what to ourselves is debt: 
What to ourselves in passion we propose, 
The passion ending, doth the purpose lose. 
The violence of either grief or joy 
Their own enactures * with themselves destroy : 
Where joy most revels, grief doth most lament; _ 
Grief joys, joy grieves, on slender accident. 
This world is not for aye; nor ’tis not strange, 
That even our loves should with our fortunes change ; 
For ’tis.a question left us yet to prove, 
Whether love lead fortune, or else fortune love. 
The great man down, you mark, his favourite flies ; 
The poor advanc’d makes friends of enemies : 
And hitherto doth love on fortune tend ; 
For who not needs, shall never lack a friend ; 
And who in want a hollow friend doth try, 
Directly seasons him his enemy.” 


22 That is, their own determinations, what they enact. 
23 Season was very commonly used in the sense of to temper 


SCE TR... * PRINCE OF DENMARK. 291 


But, orderly to end where I begun, — 

Our wills and fates do so contrary run, 

That our devices still are overthrown; 

Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own: 

So think thou wilt no second husband wed ; 

But die thy thoughts, when thy first Jord is dead. 
Queen. Nor earth to me give food, nor heaven light! 

Sport and repose lock from me, day and night ! 

To desperation turn my trust and hope ! 

An anchor’s cheer in prison be my scope! *4 

Each opposite, that blanks the face of joy, 

Meet what [ would have well, and it destroy ! 

Both here, and hence, pursue me lasting strife, 

If, once a widow, ever I be wife! 


Ham. [To Orue.| If she should break it now, — 


King. *Tis deeply sworn. Sweet, leave me here awhile 
My spirits grow dull, and fain I would beguile 


The tedious day with sleep. [ Sleeps. 
Queen. Sleep rock thy brain ; 
And never come mischance between us twain! [ Exit. 


Ham. Madam, how like you this play ? 

Queen. The lady doth protest too much, me- 
thinks. 

Ham. O! but she’ll keep her word. 

King. Have you heard the argument? Is there 
no offence in’t ? 

Ham. No, no; they: do but jest, poison in jest: 
no offence i’the world. 

King. What do you call the play ? 

Ham. The mouse-trap. Marry, how? Tropical- 
ly. This play is the image of a murder done in 


as before in this play : “ Season your admiration for a while.” See, 
also, Act i. sc. 3, note 14. H. 
24 Anchor’s for anchoret’s. Thus in Hall’s second Satire: 


«« Sit seven years pining in an anchor’s cheyre, 
‘To win some patched shreds of minivere.” 


292 HAMLET, ACT IIt. 


Vienna: Gonzago is the duke’s name ;”° his wife, 
Baptista. You shall see anon: ’tis a knavish piece 
of work; but what of that? your majesty, and we 
that have free souls, it touches us not: Let the 
gall’d jade wince, our withers are unwrung. — 


Enter LuCIANUS. 


This is one Lucianus, nephew to the king. 

Oph. You are as good as a chorus, my lord.” 

Ham. 1 could interpret between you and your 
love, if I could see the puppets dallying. 

Oph. You are keen, my lord, you are keen. 

Ham. It would cost you a groaning, to take off 
my edge. 

Oph. Still better, and worse. 

Ham. So you must take your husbands.’ — Be- 
gin, murderer: leave thy damnable faces, and begin. 
Come: — The croaking raven both bellow for re-— 
venge. 


Luc. Thoughts black, hands apt, drugs fit, and time 
agreeing ; 
Confederate season, else no creature seeing ; 


25 All the old copies read thus. Yet in the dumb show we have, 
«“ Enter a King and Queen;” and at the end of this speech, « Lu- 
cianus, nephew to the king.” This seeming inconsistency, how- 
ever, mav be reconciled. Though the interlude is the image of 
the murder of the duke of Vienna, or in other words founded upon 
that story, the Poet might make the principal person in his fable 
aking. Baptista is always the name of a man. 

°6 The use to which Shakespeare put the chorus may be seen 
in King Henry V. Every motion or puppet-show was accompa- 
nied by an interpreter or showman. 

27 Alluding, most likely, to the language of the Marriage ser- 
vice: “To have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for 
worse, for richer, for poorer,’ &c.— All the old copies, but the 
first quarto, have mistake ; which Theobald conjectured should be 
must take, before any authority for it was known. i. 


See 
i 


SC. II. : PRINCE OF DENMARK. 203 


Thou mixture rank, of midnight weeds collected,” 
With Hecate’s ban thrice blasted, thrice infected, 
Thy natural magic and dire property, 
On wholesome life usurp immediately. 
[Pours the Poison into the Sleeper’s Ears. 


Ham. He poisons him i’the garden for his estate. 
His name’s Gonzago : the story is extant, and writ- 
ten in very choice Italian. You shall see anon, how 
the murderer gets the love of Gonzago’s wife. 

Oph. The king rises. 

_ Ham. What! frighted with false fire 2 ?° 

Queen. How fares my lord? 

Pol. Give o’er the play. 

King. Give me some light !— away ! 

All. Lights, lights, lights ! *° 

[Exeunt all but Hamuer and Horatio. 

Ham. Why, let the stricken deer go weep, 

The hart ungalled play ; 
For some must watch, while some must sleep: 
Thus runs the world away. — 
Would not this, sir, and a forest of feathers, (if the 
rest of my fortunes turn Turk *' with me,) with two 
Provincial roses on my rac’d shoes, get me a fellow- 
ship in a cry of players, sir ?** 


*8 That is, weeds collected at midnight ; asin Macbeth: «Root 


of hemlock, dige’d the dark.” H. 
#9 This speech is found only in the folio and the quarto of 1603. 

H. 

39 In the quartos, this speech is given to Polonius. H. 


31 To turn Turk was a familiar phrase for any violent change 
of condition or character. 

32 Mr.’ Douce has shown that the Provincial roses took their 
name from Prowins,in Lower Brie, and not from Provence. Rac’d 
shoes are most probably embroidered shoes. The quartos read, 
raz’d. To race, or rase, was to stripe. So in Markham’s County 
Farm, speaking of wafer cakes: « Baking all together between 
two irons, having within them many raced and checkered draughts 
after the inanner of small squares.” —It was usual to call a pack 


; 25 * 


294 HAMLET, ACT IIL 


Hor. Half a share.** 
' Ham. A whole one, I. 
For thou dost know, O Damon dear! 
This realm dismantled was 
Of Jove himself; and now reigns here: 
A very, very — peacock.” 
Hor. You might have rhym’d. 
Ham. O, good Horatio! Dll take the ghost’s wora 
for a thousand pound. Didst perceive ? 
Hor. Very well, my lord. 
Ham. Upon the talk of the poisoning, — 
Hor. I did very well note him. 
Ham. Ah, ha! — Come; some music! come; the 
recorders ! °° — 
For if the king like not the comedy, 
Why then, belike, — he likes it not, perdy.** — 


of hounds a cry; from the French meute de chiens ; it is here hu- 
mourously applied to a troop or company of players. It is used 
again in Coriolanus: Menenius says to the citizens, “ You have 
made good work, you and your cry.” 

33 The players were paid not by salaries, but by shares or por- 
tions of the profit, according to merit. 

34 The old copies have paiock and paiocke, There being no 
such word known, Pope changed it to peacock ; which is probably 
right, the allusion being, perhaps, to the fable of the crow that 
decked itself with peacock’s feathers. Or the meaning may be 
the same as explained by Florio, thus: “ Pavoneggiare, to court 
it, to brave it, to peacockise it, to wantonise it, to get up and down 
fondly, gazing upon himself as a peacock does.” Mr. Blakeway, 
however, suggests puttock, a base degenerate hawk, which is con- 
trasted with the eagle in Cymbeline, Act i. se.2: “I chose an eag/le, 
and did ayoid a puttock.” H 

35 See A Midsummer-Night’s Dream, Act v. se. 1, note 11. It 
is difficult to settle exactly the form of this instrament: old writers 
in general make no distinction between a flute, a pipe, and a re- 
corder; bat Hawkins has shown clearly, from a passage in Lord 
Bacon’s Natural History, that the flute and the recorder were diss 
tinct instruments. 

36 Perdy is a corruption of the French par Dieu. 


$C. 1. - PRINCE OF DENMARK. 295 


Enter RosENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN. 


Come’; some music ! 

Guil. Good my lord, vouchsafe me a word with 
you. 

Ham. Sir, a whole history. 

Guil. The king, sir, — 

Ham. Ay, sir, what of him? 

Guil. —is in his retirement marvellous distem- 
per’d. 

Ham. With drink, sir? 

Guil. No, my lord, with choler. 

Ham. Your wisdom should show itself more 
richer, to signify this to his doctor; for, for me to 
put him to his purgation, would, perhaps, plunge 
him into more choler. 

Guil. Good my lord, put your discourse into 
some frame, and start not so wildly from my affair. 

Ham. 1 am tame, sir :— pronounce. 

Guil. The queen your mother, in most great af- 
fliction of spirit, hath sent me to you. 

Ham. You are welcome. 

Guil. Nay, good my lord, this courtesy is not of 
the right breed. If it shall please you to make me 
a wholesome answer, I will do your mother’s com- 


é mandment ; if not, your pardon, and my return shall 
be the end of my business. 
Ham. Sir, I cannot. , 


) 


g Guil. What, my lord? 

Ham. Make you a wholesome answer 3 my wit’s 
diseas’d: But, sir, such answer as I can make, you 
shall command; or, rather, as you say, my mother; 
therefore no more, but to the matter: My mother, 
you say, — 


296 HAMLET, ACT IIL 


Ros. Then, thus she says: Your behaviour hath 
struck her into amazement and admiration. 

Ham. O, wonderful son, that can so astonish a 
mother !— But is there no sequel at the heels of 
this mother’s admiration? impart. 

Kos. She desires to speak with you in her closet, 
ere you go to bed. 

Ham. We shall obey, were she ten times our 
mother. Have you any further trade with us? 

Ros. My lord, you once did love me. 

Ham. So I do still, by these pickers and stealers.?7 

Ros. Good my lord, what is your cause of dis- 
temper? you do, surely, but bar the door upon 
your own liberty, if you deny your griefs to your 
friend. | 

Ham. Sir, I lack advancement. 

Ros. How can that be, when you have the voice 
of the king himself for your succession in Den- 
mark ? 

Ham. Ay, sir, but, «* While ihe grass grows,” — 
The proverb is something musty. — 


Enter the Players, with Recorders. 


O, the recorders !— let me see one.— To withdraw 
with you:°*—why do you go about to recover the 
wind of me, as if you would drive me into a toil ?7* 


87 This is explained by a clause in the Church Catechism: «Ts 
keep my hands from pickine and stealing.’ — The quartos have 

Pam) bm PP S 
“ And do still.” instead of « So Ido still.” The latter reading 
gives a very different sense, and one of our reasons for preferring 
it is thus stated by Coleridge: «I never heard an actor give this 

: J Bone ibys 

word «so’ its proper emphasis. Shakespeare’s meaning is, — 
‘Lov’d you? Ham! so I do still.’ There has been no change ir 


my opinion: I think as ill of you as I did.” H. 
33 To withdraw, it is said, is sometimes used as a hunting term, 
meaning to draw back, to leave the scent or trail, H. 


39 « To recover the wind of me” is a term borrowed from hunt: 


Ate Tweet ie 


SG. 1. PRINCE GF DENMARK. 297 


Guil. O, my lord! if my duty be too bold, my 
love is too unmannerly.*° 

Ham. | do not well understand that. Will you 
play upon this pipe? 

Guil. My lord, I cannot. 

Hfam. 1 pray you. 

Guil. Believe me, I cannot. 

Ham. 1 do beseech you. 

Guil. I know no touch of it, my lord. 

Ham. *Tis as easy as lying: govern these vent- 
ages with your finger and thumb,*’ give it breath 
with your mouth, and it will discourse most elo- 
quent music. Look you, these are the stops. 

Guil. But these cannot I command to any utter- 
ance of harmony: I have not the skill. 

Ham. Why, look you now, how unworthy a 
thing you make of me. You would play upon me; 
you would seem to know my stops; you would 
pluck out the heart of my mystery; you would 
sound me from my lowest note to the top of my 
compass : and there is much music, excellent voice, 
in this little organ ; yet cannot you make it speak. 
’*Sblood! do you think I am easier to be play’d 
on than a pipe? Call me what instrument you 


ing, and means, to take advantage of the animal pursued, by get- 
ting to the windward of it, that it may not scent its pursuers. 
« Observe how the wind is, that you may set the net so as the hare 
and wind may come together ; if the wind be sideways it may do 
well enough, but never if it blow over the net into the hare’s face, 
for he will scent both it and you at a distance.” — Gentleman's 
Recreution. 

40 Hamlet may say with propriety, “I do not well understand 
that.” Perhaps Guildenstern means, “If my duty to the king 
makes me too bold, my love to you makes me importunate even 
to rudeness.” 

41 The ventages are the holes of the pipe. The stops means 
the mode of stopping those ventages to produce notes. 


298 HAMLET, ACT III. 


will, though you can fret me,*? you cannot play 
upon me. — 


Enter PoLontius. ‘ 


God bless you, sir! 

Pol. My lord, the queen would speak with you, 
and presently. 

Ham. Do you see, yonder cloud, that’s almost in 
shape of a camel? 

Pol. By the mass, and ’tis like a camel, indeed. 

Ham. Methinks, it is like a weasel. 

Pol. It is back’d like a weasel. 

Ham. Or, like a whale ? 

Pol. Very like a whale. 

Ham. Then, will I come to my mother by and 
by.— They fool me to the top of my bent.—I will 
come by and by. 


Pol. I will say so. [ Exit. 
Ham. By and by is easily said. — Leave me, 
friends. — [ Exeunt all but HaMvLet. 


"Tis now the very witching time of night, 

When church-yards yawn, and hell itself breathes 
out 

Contagion to this world: now could I drink hot 
blood, 

And do such bitter business as the day *° 

Would quake to look on. Soft! now to my 
mother. — 

O, heart! lose not thy nature ; let not ever 


42 Hamlet keeps up the allusion to a musical instrament. The 
frets of a lute or guitar are the ridges crossing the finger-board, 
upon which the strings are pressed or stopped. Of course a oil 

P Pp PE q 


ble is intended on fret. H. 

43 Thus the folio ; the quartos read, “such business as the bit- 
ter day.’ In the second line before, the quartos have breaks ine 
stead of breathes. H. 


a atl - 


ees ™ 
ae “. 


—~— i 


a” a 


SC. Ik - PRINCE OF DENMARK. 299 


The soul of Nero enter this firm bosom: 

Let me be cruel, not unnatural. 

I will speak daggers to her, but use none; 

My tongue and soul in this be hypocrites : 

How in my words soever she be shent,** 

To give them seals never, my soul, consent ! [ Exit. 


SCENE IIL. A Room in the Same. 


Enter the King, Rosencrantz, and GUILDEN- 
STERN. 


King. 1 like him not ; nor stands it safe with us, 
To let his madness range. Therefore, prepare you: 
I your commission will forthwith despatch, 

And he to England shall along with you. 
The terms of our estate may not endure 
Hazard so dangerous, as doth hourly grow 
Out of his lunacies.’ 

Guil. We will ourselves provide. 
Most holy and religious fear it Is, 

To keep those many many bodies safe, 
That live, and feed, upon your majesty. 

Ros. The single and peculiar life is bound, 
With all the strength and armour of the mind, 

To keep itself from ’noyance ; but much more 
That spirit, upon whose weal depend and rest 
The lives of many. The cease df majesty 
Dies not alone; but like a gulf, doth draw 


44 To shend is to injure, whether by reproof, blows, or other- 
wise. Shakespeare generally uses shent for reproved, threatened 
with angry words. “To give bis words seals” is therefore to 
carry his punishment beyond reproof. The allusion is the sealing 
a deed to render it effective. 

1 So the folio; the quartos read “so near us” instead of “so 
dangerous,” aud brows instead of lunacies. H. 


Shit, igus Wee Cee 
ae) ryt 


300 . HAMLET, ACT IIL 


What’s near it with it: it is a massy wheel, 
Fix’d-on the summit of the highest mount, 
To whose huge spokes ten thousand lesser things 
Are mortis’d and adjoin’d; which when it falls, 
Each small annexment, petty consequence, 
Attends the boisterous ruin. Never alone 
Did the king sigh, but with a general groan. 

king. Arm you, I pray you, to this speedy voy- 

age 5 

For we will fetters put upon this fear, 
Which now goes too free-footed. 

Ros. Guil. We will haste us. [Ezeunt. 


Enter Povontus. 


Pol. My lord, he’s going to his mother’s closet. 
Behind the arras I’ll convey myself, 
To hear the process: I’ll warrant, she’ll tax him 

home ; 

And, as you said, and wisely was it said, 
"Tis meet that some more audience than a mother, 
Since nature makes them partial, should o’erhear 
The speech of vantage? Fare you well, my liege: 
V'}l call upon you ere you go to bed, 
And tell you what I know. 

King. Thanks, dear my lord. — 

[Exit Pouontus. 

O! my offence is rank, it smells to heaven ; 
It hath the primal eldest curse upon’t, 
A brother’s murder ! — Pray can I not, 
Though inclination be as sharp as will :? 
My stronger guilt defeats my strong intent ; 


* «Speech of vantage” probably means “speech having the 
advantage of a mother’s partiality.” H. 

3 That is, «though I were not only willing, but strongly inclined 
to pray, my guilt would prevent me.” 


i ee ee 


Paver yy: 


Sten. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 301 


And, like a man to double business bound, 

I stand in pause where [I shall first begin, 

And both neglect. What if this cursed hand 
Were thicker than itself with brother’s blood? 
Is there not rain enough in the sweet heavens, 
To wash it white as snow? Whereto serves mercy, 
But to confront the visage of offence ? 

And what’s in prayer, but this two-fold force, — 
To be forestalled, ere we come to fall, 

Or pardon’d, being down? Then, I'll look up ; 
My fault is past. But, O! what form of prayer 
Can serve my turn? Forgive me my foul murder ! — 
That cannot be ; since I am still possess’d 

Of those effects for which I did the murder, 

My crown, mine own ambition, and my queen. 
May one be pardon’d, and retain th’ offence ? 

In the corrupted currents of this world, 
Offence’s gilded hand may shove by justice 3 
And oft ’tis seen, the wicked prize itself 

Buys out the law: but ’tis not so above ; 

There is no shuffling, there the action lies 

In his true nature ; and we ourselves compell’d, 
Even to the teeth and forehead of our faults, 
To give in evidence. What then? what Tests ? 
Try what repentance can: What can it not? 
Yet what can it, when one can not repent ? 

O, wretched state! O bosom, black as death ! 


O, limed soul !* that, struggling to be free, 


Art more engag’d. Help, angels! make assay : 
Bow, stubborn knees; and, heart, with strings of 


steel, 
Be soft as sinews of the new-born babe: 
All may be well !° [Retires and kneels. 


4 That is, caught as with birdlime. See 2 Henry VI., Act is 
sc. 3, note 6. ; 
6 This speech well marks the difference between crime sal 


VOL. xX. 26 


302 HAMLET, ACT IIL. 


Enter HAamMurt. 


Ham. Now might I do it, pat, now he is praying 
And now Ill do’t: —and so he goes to heaven ; 
‘And so am I reveng’d? That would be scann’d :° 
A villain kills my father ; and, for that, 

I, his sole son, do this same villain send 

To heaven. 

Why, this is hire and salary, not revenge.” 

He took my father grossly, full of bread ; 

With all his crimes broad-blown, as flush as May ; 
And how his audit stands, who knows, save Heaven 2 
But, in our circumstance and course of thought, 
*Tis heavy with him: and am I, then, reveng’d, 
To take him in the purging of his soul, 

When he is fit and season’d for his passage 1 

No. 


Up, sword; and know thou a more horrid hent :® 


guilt of habit. The conscience here is still admitted to audience, 
Nay, even as an audible soliloquy, it is far less improbable than is 
supposed by such as have watched men only in the beaten road 
of their feelings. But the final —« All may be well!” is remark- 
able ; — the degree of merit attributed by the self-flattering soul to 
its own struggles, though baffled, and to the indefinite half prom- 
ise, half command, to persevere in religious duties. —CoLE- 
RIDGE. H. 

6 That requires consideration. —In the first line of this speech, 
the quartos read «but now ’a is a praying,” instead of “pat, now 
he is praying.” And in the fifth line, the folio has foul instead of 


sole. H. 
7 Thus the folio; the quartos have «base and silly” instead of * 
“hire and salary.” H 


8 That is, more horrid seizure, grasp, or hold. Hent was often 
used as a verb in the same sense. See The Winter’s Tale, Act 2 
iv. se. 2, note 19. — Dr. Johnson and others have exclaimed against . 
what Hamlet here says, as showing a thorough-paced and unmit- 
igable fiendishness of spirit. Coleridge much more justly regards 
the motives assigned for sparing the king, as “the marks of re- 
luctance and procrastination.” At all events, that they are not 
Hamlet’s real motives, is evident from their very extravagance. 


SC. III. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 303 


When he is drunk, asleep, or in his rage ; 

Or in th’ incestuous pleasures of his bed ; 

At gaming, swearing ; or about some act. 

That has no relish of salvation in’t: 

Then trip him, that his heels may kick at heaven; 
And that his soul may be as damn’d, and black 

As hell, whereto it goes. My mother stays: 

This physic but prolongs thy sickly days. — [ Exzit. 


The King rises and advances. 


King. My words fly up, my thoughts remain 
below: 
Words, without thoughts, never to heaven go. 
»  [Bxit. 


SCENE IV. Another Room in the Same. 


Enter the Queen and Po.vontus. 


Pol. He willcome straight. Look, you lay home 
to him 3 
Tell him, his pranks have been too broad to bear 
with ; 
And that your grace hath screen’d and stood be- 
tween 
Much heat and him. [I'll’silence me e’en here. 
*Pray you, be round with him. 
Ham. [ Within.] Mother, mother, mother !' 


With the full conviction that he ought to kill the king, he joins a 
deep instinctive moral repugnance to the deed: and he here flies 
off to an ideal revenge, in order to quiet his filial feelings without 
violating his conscience ; effecting a compromise between them, 
by adiourning a purpose which, as a man, he dare not execute, 
nor, as a son, abandon. He afterwards asks Horatio, —“ Is’t not 
perfect conscience, to quit him with this arm ?’* which confirms the 
view here taken, as it shows that even then his mind was not at 
rest on that score. H. 

1 This speech is found only in the folio. He 


ter ie ae 


304 HAMLET, ACT III 


Queen. I'll warrant you ; 
Fear me not :— withdraw ; I hear him coming. 
[PoLonius hides himself. 


Enter HAMLET. 


Ilam. Now, mother! what’s the matter? 

Queen. Hamlet, thou hast thy father much of- 

fended. " 

Ham. Mother, you have my father much offended. 

Quecn. Come, come ; you answer with an idle 

tongue. 

Ham. Go, go; you question with a wicked 

tongue. . 

Queene Why, how now, Hamlet ! 

Ham. What’s the matter now ? 

Queen. Have you forgot me ? 

Ham. No, by the rood, not so: 
You are the queen, your husband’s brother’s wife ; 
And — would it were not so! —you are my mother. 

Queen. Nay, then I'll set those to you that can 

speak. 

Ham. Come, come, and sit you down; you shall 

not budge: 
You go not, till I set you up a glass 
Where you may see the inmost part of you. 
Queen. What wilt thou do? thou wilt not mur- 
der me? 
Help, help, ho! 
Pol. [Behind.] What, ho! Help help! help! 
Ham. [ Drawing.| How now! a rat? Dead, for 
a ducat, dead. . 
[HamLet makes a pass through the Arras. 
Pol. [Behind.| O! Tam slain. [Falls, and dies. 
Queen. O me! what hast thou done ? 


Sc. IV. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 305 


Ham. Nay, I know not: Is it the king? 
[He lifts up the Arras, and draws forth 
Po.onius. 
Queen. O, what a rash and bloody deed is this! 
Ham. A bloody deed; almost as bad, good mother, 
As kill a king, and marry with his brother. 
Queen. As kill a king? 
Ham. Ay, lady, ’twas my word. — 
[To Poton.] Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, 
farewell ! 
I took thee for thy better ; take thy fortune: 
Thou find’st, to be too busy is some danger. — 
Leave wringing of your hands: Peace! sit you 
down, 
And let me wring your heart: for so I shall, 
If it be made of penetrable stuff ; 
If damned custom have not braz’d it so, 
That it is proof and bulwark against sense. 
Queen. What have I done, that thou dar’st wag 
thy tongue 
In noise so rude against me ? 
Ham. Such an act, 
That blurs the grace and blush of modesty ; 
Calls virtue, hypocrite ; takes off the rose 
From the fair forehead of an innocent love, 
And sets a blister there ; makes marriage vows 
As false as dicers’ oaths: O! such’a deed 
As from the body of contraction plucks 
The very soul,’ and sweet religion makes 
A rhapsody of words: Heaven’s face doth glow, 


‘Yea, this solidity and compound mass, 


With tristful visage, as against the doom, 
Is thought-sick at the act.” 


2 Contraction here means the marriage contract. H. 
3 So the folio: the quartos read thus: 


QG * 20 


306 HAMLET, ACT Ill. 


Queen. — Ah me! what act, 
That roars so loud, and thunders in the index ?4 
Ham. Look here upon this picture, and on this; 
The counterfeit presentment of two brothers. 
See, what a grace was seated on this brow: 
Hyperion’s curls; the front of Jove himself ; 
An eye like Mars, to threaten and command ; 
A station like the herald Mercury,’ 
New-lighted on a heaven-kissing hill ; 
A combination and a form, indeed, 
Where every god did seem to set his seal, 
To give the world assurance of a man: 
This was your husband.’ Look you now, what fol 
lows: 
Here is your husband; like a mildew’d ear, 
Blasting his wholesome brother. Have you eyes? 
Could you on this fair mountain leave to feed, 
And batten’ on this moor? Ha! have you eyes? 
You cannot call it love ; for, at your age, 
The hey-day in the blood is tame, it’s humble, 
And waits upon the judgment: and what judgment 
Would step from this to this? Sense, sure, you have, 
Else could you not have motion ; but, sure, that sense 
Is apoplex’d ; for madness woud not err, 


«« Heaven’s face does glow 
O’er this solidity and compound mass, 
With heated visage,” &c. H. 


4 The index, or table of contents, was formerly placed at the 
beginning of books. In Othello, Act ii. se. 2, we have, “an in- 
dex and obscure prologue to the history of lust and foul thoughts.” 

5 Station does not mean the spot where any. one is placed, but 
the act of standing, the attitude. So in Antony and Cleopatra, 
Act iii. se. 3: “Her motion and her station are as one.” 

6 Here the allusion is to Pharaoh’s dream; Genesis xli. 

7 That is, to feed rankly or grossly: it.is usually applied to the 
fattening of animals. Marlowe has it for “to grow fat.” Bat is 
the old word for increase; whence we have battle, batten, batful. 


SG.:IVet 1 - PRINCE OF DENMARK 307 


Nor sense to ecstasy was ne’er so thrall’d, 
But it reserv’d some quantity of choice, 
To serve in such a difference. What devil was’t, 
That thus hath cozen’d you at hoodman-blind 2° 
Eyes without feeling, feeling without sight, 
Ears without hands or eyes, smelling sans all, 
Or but a sickly part of one true sense 
Could not so mope.”® 
O shame! where is thy blush? Rebellious hell, 
If thou canst mutine-in a matron’s bones," 
To flaming youth let virtue be as wax, 
And melt in her own fire: proclaim no shame, 
When the compulsive ardour gives the charge ; 
Since frost itself as actively doth burn, 
And reason panders will.”* 

Queen. O, Hamlet! speak no more: 
Thou turn’st mine eyes into my very soul ; 
And there I see such black and grained spots'* 
As will not leave their tinct. 

Ham. Nay, but to live 
In the rank sweat of an enseamed bed ; ** 
Stew’d in corruption ; honeying, and making love 
Over the nasty sty ;— 


8 This passage, beginning at “ Sense, sure, you have,” is want- 


ing in the folio. Likewise, that just afier, beginning, “Eyes 
without feeling,” and ending, “Could not so mope.” H. 

9 « The hoodwinke play, or hoodman blind, in some place called 
blindmanbuf.” — BARET. 

10 That is, could not be so dull and stupid. 

11 Mutine for mutiny. This is the old’ form of the verb. Shake- 
speare calls mutineers mutines in a subsequent scene. 

12 The quartos have pardons instead of panders. H. 

13 « Grained spots” are spots ingrained, or dyed in the grain. 

H. 

14 Enseamed is a term borrowed from falconry. It is well 
known that the seam of any animal was the fat or tallow ; and a 
hawk was said to be enseamed when she was too fat or gross for 
flight. —The undated quarto and that of 1611 read incestuous. 


308 HAMLET, : ACT IIe 


Queen. O, speak to me no more! 
These words like daggers enter in mine ears: 
No more, sweet Hamlet. 
Ham. A murderer, and a villain, 
A slave, that is not twentieth part the tithe 
Of your precedent lord: —a vice of kings!” 
A cutpurse of the empire and the rule, 
That from a shelf the precious diadem stole, 
And put it in his pocket ! 
Queen. No more! 


Enter the Ghost.'® 


Ham. A king of shreds and patches. — 
Save me, and hover o’er me with your wings, 
You heavenly guards ! — What would your gracious 
figure ? 
Queen. Alas! he’s mad. 
Ham. Do you not come your tardy son to chide, 
That, laps’d in time and passion,”’ lets go by 
Th’ important acting of your dread command? 
O, say! 
Ghost. Do not forget. This visitation 
Is but to whet thy almost-blunted purpose. 
But, look! amazement on thy mother sits : 
O! step between her and her fighting soul ; 


15 That is, “the low mimic, the counterfeit, a dizard, or com- 
mon rice and jester, counterfeiting the gestures of any man.” — 
FLEMING. Shakespeare afterwards calls him a king of shreds 
and patches, alluding to the party-coloured habit of the vice or fool 
in a play. 

16 When the Ghost goes out, Hamlet says, — “ Look, how it 
steals away! my father, in his habit as he liv'd.” I has been 
much argued what is meant by this; that is, whether the Ghost 
should wear armour here, as in former scenes, or appear in a dif- 
erent dress. ‘The question is set at rest by the stage-direction 
in the first quarto: “Enter the Ghost, in his night-gown.” H. 

17 Johnson explains this— “That having suffered time to ap 
and passion to cool,” &c. 


SC. IV. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 309 


Conceit in weakest bodies strongest works.’® 

Speak to her, Hamlet. 
Ham. How is it with you, lady? 
Queen. Alas! how is’t with you, 

That you do bend your eye on vacancy, 

And with th’ incorporal air do hold discourse 1? 

Forth at your eyes your spirits wildly peep ; 

And, as the sleeping soldiers in th’ alarm, 

Your bedded hair, like life in excrements,’® 

Statts up, and stands on-end. O, gentle son! 

Upon the heat and flame of thy distemper 

Sprinkle cool patience. Whereon do you look? 
Ham. On him! on him!— Look you, how pale 

he glares ! 
His form and cause conjoin’d, preachigg to stones, 
Would make them capable.*° — Do not look upon 
me 5 

Lest with this piteous action you convert 

My stern affects:*' then what I have to do 

Will want true colour; tears, perchance, for blood. 
Queen. To whom do you speak this? 
Ham. Do you see nothing there? 
Queen. Nothing at all; yet all that is I see. 
Ham. Nor did you nothing hear ? 


18 Conceit for conception, imagination. This was the common 
force of the word in the Poet’s time. 

19 That is, like excrements alive, or having life in them. Hair, 
nails, feathers, &c., were called excrements, as being without life. 
See The Winter’s Tale, Act iv. sc. 3, note 47. H. 

20 That is, would put sense and understanding into them. The 
use of capable for susceptible, intelligent, is not peculiar to Shake- 
speare. H. 

21 Affects was often used for affections ; as in Othello, «the 
young affects in me defunct.” The old copies read effects, which 
was a frequent misprint for affects. Singer justly remarks, that 
“the ‘piteous action’ of the Ghost could not alter things already 
effected, but might move Hamlet to a less stern mood of mind.” 

" , ~ , y- 


Jf 27S eee 
nm” . , 


310 HAMLET, ACT Itt 
Queen. No, nothing, but ourselves. 
Ham. Why, loox you there! look, how it steals 

away ! 


My father, in his habit as he liv’d! 
Look, where he goes, even now,.out at the portal ! 
[Exit Ghost. 

Queen. This is the very coinage of your brain: 
This bodiless creation ecstasy ” | 
Is very cunning in. 

Ham. Ecstacy ! 
My pulse, as yours, doth temperately keep time, 
And makes as healthful music. It is not madness, 
That I have utter’d: bring me to the test, 
And I the matter will re-word ; which madness 
Would gamhol from.** Mother, for love of grace, 
Lay not that flattering unction.to your soul, 
That not your trespass, but my madness speaks: 
It will but skin and film the ulcerous place, 
Whiles rank corruption, mining all within, 
Infects unseen. Confess yourself to Heaven 5 
Repent what’s past ; avoid what is to come ; 
And do not spread the compost on the weeds, 
To make them ranker.** Forgive me this my virtue: 
For in the fatness of these pursy times, 
Virtue itself of vice must pardon beg 3 
Yea, curb®° and woo, for leave to do him good. 


- 


22 'This word has occurred in the same sense before. See scene 
1, of this Act, note 22, H. 

23 Science has found the Poet’s test a correct one. Dr. Ray, 
of Providence, in his work on the Jurisprudence of Insanity, thus 
states the point: “In simulated mania, the impostor, when request- 
ed to repeat. his disordered idea, will generally do it correctly ; 
while the genuine patient will be apt to wander from the track, or 
introduce ideas that had not presented themselves before.” H. 

24 That is, do not by any new indulgence heighten your former 
offences. 

% That is, bow. «“Courber, Fr., to bow, crook, or curb.” 


i Too 


Sc. IV. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 311 


Queen. O, Hamlet! thou hast cleft my heart in 
twain. 
Ham. O! throw away the worser part of it, 
And live the purer with the other half. 
Good night: but go not to my uncle’s bed ; 
Assume a virtue, if you have it not. 
That monster, custom, who all sense doth eat, 
Of habits devil, is angel yet in this,** 
That to the use of actions fair and good 
He likewise gives a frock, or livery, 
That aptly is put on. Refrain to-night ; 
And that shall lend a kind of easiness 
To the next abstinence: the next more easy , 
For use almost can change the stamp of nature, 
And master the devil or throw him out”? 
With wondrous potency. Once more, good night! 
And when you are desirous to be bless’d, 


26 A very obscure and elliptical passage, if indeed it be not 
corrupt. We have adopted Caldecott’s pointing, which gives the 
meaning somewhat thus: “ That monster, custom, who devours or 
eats out all sensibility or feeling as to what we do, though he be 
the devil or evil genius of our habits, is yet our good angel in 
this.” Collier and Verplanck order the pointing thus: “ Who all 
sense doth eat of habits, devil, is angel yet in this.” Where the 
meaning is, —“ That monster, custom, who takes away all sense 
of habits, devil though he be, is still an angel in this respect.” 
This also pleads a fair title to preference, and we find it not easy 
to choose between the two. Dr. Thirlby proposed to read, “ Of 
habits evil ;”? which would give the clear and natural sense, that 
by custom we lose all feeling or perception of bad habits, and be- 
come reconciled to them as if they were nature. The probability, 
however, that an antithesis was meant between devil and angel, is 
against this reading ; otherwise, we should incline to think it right. 
— The whole sentence is omitted in the folio; as is also the pass- 
age beginning with “ the next more easy,” and ending with “ won- 
drous potency.” H. 

27 So the undated quarto and that of 1611; the others have 
cither instead of muster. Some editors, probably not knowing of 
not consulting the copies first mentioned, have supplied curb or 
quell after either. . 


312 HAMLET, ACT Il’ 


I'll blessing beg of you. — For this same lord, 
| Pointing to PoLontus. 

I do repent: but heaven hath pleas’d it so, 
To punish me with this, and this with me, 
That I must be their scourge and minister.”* 
I will bestow him, and will answer well 
The death I gave him. So, again, good night ! — 
I must be cruel, only to be kind: 
Thus bad begins, and worse remains behind. — 
But one word more, good lady.” 

Queen. What shall I do? 

Ham. Not this, by no means, that I bid you do: 
Let the bloat king tempt you again to bed; 
Pinch wanton on your cheek; call you his mouse ; 
And let him, for a pair of reechy kisses,” 
Or paddling in your neck with his damn’d fingers, 
Make you to ravel all this matter out, 
That I essentially am not in madness, 
But mad in craft. "IT'were good, you let him know ; 
For who, that’s but a queen, fair, sober, wise, 
Would from a paddock, from a bat, a gib,” 
Such dear concernings hide? who would do so? 
No, in despite of sense and secrecy, 
Unpeg the basket on the house’s top, 
Let the birds fly, and, like the famous ape, 


28 The pronoun their refers, apparently, to heaven, which is 
here a collective noun, put for the heavenly powers. H. 

29 The words « But one word more, good lady,” are not in the 
folio. And in the next line but one, the folio has blunt instead of 


dloat. H. 
30 Mouse was a term of endearment. ‘Thus Burton, in his 
Anatomy of Melancholy : “ Pleasant names may be invented, bird, 


mouse, lamb, puss, pigeon.” 

31 Reeky and reechy are the same word, and always applied to 
any vapourous exhalation, even to the fumes of a dunghill. See 
Coriolanus, Act ii. se. 1, note 18. 

32 A paddock is a toad ; a gib,a cat. See Macbeth, Act i. sc 
1, note3; and 1 Henry IV., Act i. sc. 2, note 6. H. 


SC.{T¥. i - PRINCE OF DENMARK. 313 


To try conclusions in the basket creep,*° 
And break your own neck down. 
Queen. Be thou assur’d, if words be made of 
breath, 
And breath of life, I have no life to breathe 
What thou hast said to me.** 
Ham. I must to England; you know that, 
Queen. Alack ! 
I had forgot: tis so concluded on. 
Ham. There’s letters seal’d ; and my two school 
fellows, — . 
Whom I will trust, as I will adders fang’d, — 
They bear the mandate; they must sweep my way, 
And marshal me to knavery. Let it work ; 
For ’tis the sport, to have the engineer 
Hoist with his own petar ; °° and it shall go hard, 


33 To try conclusions is to put to proof, or try experiments. 
’ See Antony and Cleopatra, Act v. sc. 2, note 33. Sir John Suck- 
ling possibly alludes to the same story in one of his letters: «It 
is the story after all of the jackanapes and the partridges ; thou 
starest after a beauty till it be lost to thee, and then Jet’st out an- 
other, and starest after that till it is gone too.’ 

34 «TI confess,” says Coleridge, “ that Shakespeare has left the 
character of the Queen in an unpleasant perplexity. Was she, or 
was she not, conscious of the fratricide?”” This “ perplexity,” 
whatever it be, was doubtless designed by the Poet; for in the 
original form of the play she stood perfectly clear on this score; 
as appears from several passages in the quarto of 1603, which 
were afterwards disciplined out of the text. Thus, in one place 
of this scene, she says to Hamlet, — 


4 «But, as I have a soul, I swear to Heaven, 
I never knew of this most horrid murder.” 


And in this place she speaks thus: 


“ Hamlet, I vow by that Majesty, 
That knows our thoughts and looks into our hearts, 
I will conceal, consent, and do my best, 
What stratagem soe’er thou shalt devise.” H. 


3* Hoist for hoised. 'To hoyse was the old verb. A petar was 
a kind of mortar used to blow up gates. 


VOL. X. yj 


314 WAMLET, ACT IV. 


But I will delve one yard below their mines, 

And blow them at the moon. OQ, ’tis most sweet, 

When in one line two crafts directly meet.°° — 

This man shall set me packing: 

Tl lug the guts into the neighbour room. — 

Mother, good night. — Indeed, this counsellor 

Is now most still, most secret, and most grave, 

Who was in life a foolish prating knave. 

Come, sir, to draw toward an end with you. — 

Good night, mother. [zeunt severally; HAMLET 
dragging in POLONIUSs. 


AGL Eye 


SCENE I. The Same. 


Enter the King, the Queen, RosENCRANTZ, and 
GUILDENSTERN. 


King. There’s matter in these act these pro- 
found heaves : 
You must translate ; ’tis fit we understand them. 
Where is your son? 
Queen. Bestow this place on us a little while." — 
[Exeunt Rosen. and GUILDEN. 
Ah, my good lord, what have I seen to-night! , 
eae What, Gertrude? How does Hamlet ? 


36 The foregoing part of this speech is wanting in the folio. 
H. 

1 This line is omitted in the folio; Rosencrantz and Guilden- 
stern not being there introduced till the King calls them, at the 
place of their re-entrance. — In the next line, the quartos kave, 
¢ mine own lord,” instead of “my good lord.” 


~< 


SC. I. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 315 


Queen. Mad as the sea, and wind, when both 
contend 
Which is the mightier. In his lawless fit, 
Behind the arras hearing something stir, 
He whips his rapier out, and cries, «A rat! a rat !”?? 
And in his brainish apprehension kills 
The unseen good old man. 
King. O, heavy deed! 
It had been so with us, had we been there: 
His liberty is full of threats to all; 
To you yourself, to us, to every one. 
Alas! how shall this bloody deed be answer’d ? 
It will be laid to us, whose providence 
Should have kept short, restrain’d, and out of haunt,’ 
This mad young man: but, so much was our love, 
We would not understand what was most fit ; 
But, like the owner of a foul disease, 
To keep it from divulging, let it feed 
Even on the pith of life. Where is he gone? 
Queen. To draw apart the body he hath kill’d; 
O’er whom bis very madness, like some ore 
Among a mineral of metals base,‘ 
Shows itself pure: he weeps for what is done. 
King. O, Gertrude! come away. 


_ The sun no sooner shall the mountains touch, 


? So reads the folio; the quartos give the line thus: “ Whips 
out his rapier, cries, ‘a rat! arat!’” In the next line, also, the 
quartos have this instead of his. H. 

3 Out of haunt means out of company. 

* Shakespeare, with a license not unusual among his contem- 
poraries, uses ore for gold, and mineral for mine. Bullokar and 
Blount both define “or or ore, gold; of a golden colour.” And 
the Cambridge Dictionary, 1594, under the Latin word mineralia, 
will show how the English mineral came to be used for a mine. 
Thus also in The Golden Remaines of Hales of Eton, 1693; “ Con- 
troversies of the times, like spirits in the minerals, with all their 
labour nothing is done.” 


316 HAMLET, ACT IVe 


But we will ship him hence; and this vile deed 

We must, with all our majesty and skill, 

Both countenance and excuse. —Ho! Guilden- 
stern ! 


Re-enter ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN. 


Friends both, go join you with some further aid. 

Hamlet in madness hath Polonius slain, 

And from his mother’s closet hath he dragg’d him: 

Go, seek him out; speak fair, and bring the body 

Into the chapel. I pray you, haste in this. — 
[Exeunt Rosen. and GUILDEN. 

Come, Gertrude, we’ll call up our wisest friends 

And let them know both what we mean to do, 

And what’s untimely dune: so, haply, slander — 

Whose whisper o’er the world’s diameter, 

As level as the cannon to his blank,” 

Transports his poison’d shot—may miss our name, 

And hit the woundless air..—O, come away ! 

My soul is full of discord, and dismay. _—[Ezeunt. 


SCENE II. Another Room in the Same. 


Enter HAMLET. 


Ham. Safely stowed. 
Ros. and Guil. [ Within.] Hamlet! lord Hamlet! 


5 The blank was the mark at which shots or arrows were di- 
rected. 

6 All this passage, after “untimely done,” is wanting in the 
folio. The words, “so, kaply, slander,” are not in any old copy, 
but were supplied by Theobald as necessary to the sense. The 
well-known passage in Cymbeline, Act iii. se. 4, beginning, — 
«No; ’tis slander,” — will readily occur to any student of Shake- 
speare, as favouring the insertion. H. 


$6. 1th. + - PRINCE OF DENMARK. 317 | 


Ham. But soft !— what ‘noise? who calls on 
Hamlet? O! here they come. 


Enter ROSENCRANTz and GUILDENSTERN. 


Ros. What have you done, my lord, with the 

dead body ? 

Ham. Compounded it with dust, whereto ’tis kin. 

Ros. Tell me where ’tis; that we may take it 

thence, 
And bear it to the chapel. 

Ham. Do not believe it. 

Ros. Believe what? 

Ham. That I can keep your counsel, and not 
mine own. Besides, to be demanded of a sponge, 
what replication should be made by the son of a 
king ? 

Kos. Take you me for a sponge, my lord? 

Ham. Ay, sit; that soaks up the king’s counten- 
ance, his rewards, his authorities. But sucli officers 
do the king best service in the end: he keeps them, 
as an ape doth nuts,' in the corner of his jaw; 
first mouth’d, to be last swallowed: When he needs 
what you have glean’d, it is but squeezing you, and, 
sponge, you shall be dry again. 

Ros. I understand you not, my lord. 

Ham. I am glad of it: a knavish speech sleeps 
in a foolish ear. 

Ros. My lord, you must tell us where the body 
is, and go with us to the king. 

Ham. The body is with the king, but the king is 
not with the body.” The king is a thing — 


1 The words, “as an ape doth nuts,” are from the quarto of _ 
1603. The other quartos merely have, “like an apple ;” which 
Farmer and Ritson conjectured should be, “like an ape an apple.” 
The tolio has, “ like an ape,” only. H. 

2 Hamlet is purposely talking riddles, in order to tease an* 


PT hg 


OS a 


318 HAMLET, | ACT IV. 


Guil. A thing, my lord? 
Ham. — of nothing: bring me to him. Hide fox, 
and all after.” | Exeunt. 


SCENE III. Another Room in the Same. 


Enter the King, attended. 


King. I have sent to seek him, and to find the 
body. 

How dangerous is it, that this man goes loose ! 
Yet must not we put the strong law on him: 
He’s lov’d of the distracted multitude, 
Who like not in their judgment, but their eyes 5 
And, where ’tis so, th’ offender’s scourge 1s weigh’d, 
But never the offence. To bear all smooth and even, 
This sudden sending him away must seem 
Deliberate pause: Diseases, desperate grown, 
By desperate appliance are reliev’d, 


Enter ROSENCRANTZ. 


Or not at all.— How now! what hath befallen ? 
Ros. Where the dead body is bestow’d, my lord, 
We cannot get from him. 
King. But where is he? 
Ros. Without, my lord ; guarded, to know your 
pleasure. 
King. Bring him before us. 
Ros. Ho, Guildenstern! bring in my lord. 


puzzle his questioners. ‘The meaning of this riddle, to the best 
of our guessing, is, that the king’s body is with the king, but not 
the king’s soul: he’s a king without kingliness ; “a king of shreds 
and patches.” H. 

3 « Hide fox, and all after”? was a juvenile sport, most prob- 
ably what is now called hoop, or hide and seek ; in which one chilé 


hides himself, and the rest run all after, seeking him. 


SG. Iie i - PRINCE OF DENMARK. 319 


Enter HAMLET and GUILDENSTERN. 


King. Now, Hamlet, where’s Polonius ? 

ITam. At supper. 

King. At supper! Where? 

Ham. Not where he eats, but where he is eaten * 
a certain convocation of politic worms are e’en at 
him.’ Your worm is your only emperor for diet: we 
fat all creatures else, to fat us; and we fat ourselves 
for maggots: Your fat king, and your lean beggar, 
is but variable service; two dishes, but to one table; 
that’s the end. 

King. Alas, alas!” 

Ham. A man may fish with the worm that hath 
eat of a king; and eat of the fish that hath fed of 
that worm. 

King. What dost thou mean by this? 

Ham. Nothing, but to show you how a king may 
go a progress through the guts of a beggar.® 

King. Where is Polonius? 

Ham. In heaven; send thither to see: if your 
messenger find him not there, seek him i’the other 
place yourself. But, indeed, if you find him not 
within this month, you shall nose him as you go up 
the stairs into the lobby. 

King. [To Attendants.| Go seek him there. 

Ham. We will stay till you come. 

[Exeunt Attendants. 


1 Alluding, no doubt, to the Diet of Worms, which Protestants 
of course regarded as a convocation of politicians. There wera 
little need of saying this, but that Mr. Collier’s second folio sup 
plies palated for politic, the word being omitted in the folios 3; and 
Mr. Collier thinks palated is «certainly more Brews in tha 
Pare where it occurs.” More applicable! H 

2 This speech and the following one are omitted in the folio. 

* Alluding to the royal journeys of state, styled progresses. 


# Lg ‘ 
i 2) Se 
‘ rus ‘sf 


320 HAMLET, ACT IV. 


King. Hamlet, this deed, for thine especial safe- 
ty, 
Which we do tender, as we dearly grieve 
For that which thou hast done, — must send thee 
hence 
With fiery quickness; therefore prepare thyself : 
The bark is ready, and the wind at help, 
4h’ associates tend,’ and every thing is bent 
For England. 
Ham. For England ? 
King. Ay, Hamlet. ! 
Ham. Good. 
King. So is it, if thou knew’st our purposes. 
Ham. I see a cherub that Sees them. — But, 
come; for England !— Farewell, dear mother. 
King. Thy loving father, Hamlet. : | 
Ham. My mother: father and mother is man and 
wife; man and wife is one flesh; and so, my mother. 


Come, for England. [ Exit. 
King. Follow him at foot; tempt him with speed 
aboard : 


Delay it not; I’ll have him hence to-night : 

Away ; for every thing is seal’d and done, 

That else leans on th’ affair: "Pray you, make haste. 
[Exeunt Rosen. and GUILDEN. 

And, England, if my love thou hold’st at aught, 

(As my great power thereof may give thee sense ; 

Since yet thy cicatrice looks raw and red 

After the Danish sword, and thy free awe 

Pays homage to us,) thou may’st not coldly set ° 


4 That is, the associates of your voyage are waiting. — “ The 
* wind at help” means, the wind serves, or is right, to forward you. 
— The words, “ With fiery quickness,” are not in the quartos. 
; ; ay 
5 To set formerly meant to estimate. “ To sette, or tell the 
pryce; @stimare.” To set much or little by a thing, is to estimate 
it much or little. 


SC. IV PRINCE OF DENMARK. 321 


Our sovereign process; which imports at full, 
By letters conjuring to that effect,® . 
The present death of Hamlet. Do it, England ; 
For like the hectic in my blood he rages, 
And thou must cure me: Till I know ’tis done, 
Howe’er my haps, my joys were ne’er begun.’ 

[ Exit. 


SCENE IV. A Plain in Denmark. 


Enter Fortinpras, and Forces, marching. 


For. Go, captain; from me greet the Danish king: 
Tell him, that by his license Fortinbras 
Claims the conveyance of a promis’d march 
Over his kingdom.’ You know the rendezvous. 
If that his majesty would aught with us, 
We shall express our duty in his eye.’ 
And let him know so. 

Cap. I will do’t, my lord. 

For. Go softly on.*° 

[Exeunt Fortinsras and Forces. 


§ The folio has conjuring ; the quartos, congruing, which may 
be right, in the sense of concurring or agreeing. Conjuring is 
earnestly requesting. See Romeo and Juliet, Act v. se. 3, note 3. 

H. 

7 Thus the folio; the quartos, “my joys will ne’er begin.” 

The folio reading is preferred on account of the rhyme; with 


which the scenes in this play are commonly closed. H. 
‘ The quartos have craves instead of claims, the reading of the 
folio. H 


2 In the Regulations for the Establishment of the Queen’s 
Household, 1627: « All such as doe service in the queen’s eye.” 
And in The Establishment of Prince Henry’s Household, 1610: 
“ All such as doe service in the prince’s eye.” 

3 These words are probably spoken to the troops. The folio 
has safely instead of softly.— What follows of this scene is want- 
ing in the folio. H. 

21 


; wD ea Pas ‘4. db el 
JT io op ee emp AR ea 


322 HAMLET, ACT IV. 


Enter HaMuLetT, ROSENCRANTZ, GUILDENSTERN, &¢ 


Ham. Good sir, whose powers are these ? 
Cap. They are of Norway, sir. 
Ham. How purpos’d, sir, I pray you? 
Cap. Against some part of Poland. 
Ham. Who commands them, sir? 
Cap. The nephew to old Norway, Fortinbras. 
Ham. Goes it against the main of Poland, sir, 
Or for some frontier ? 
Cap. Truly to speak, sir, and with no addition, 
We go to gain a little patch of ground, 
That hath in it no profit but the name. 
To pay five ducats, five, | would not farm it; 
Nor will it yield to Norway, or the Pole, 
A ranker rate, should it be sold in fee. 
Ham. Why, then the Polack never will defend it. 
Cap. Yes, ‘tis already garrison’d. 
Ham. Two thousand souls, and twenty thousand 
ducats, 
Will not debate the question of this straw: 
This is th’ imposthume of much wealth and peace, 
hat inward breaks, and shows no cause without 
Why the man dies. —I humbly thank you, sir. 
Cap. God be wi’ you, sir. [Exit Captain. 
Ros. Will’t please you go, my lord? 
Ham. Vil be with you straight. Go a little be- 
fore. — [Exeunt Rosen. and GUILDEN 
How all occasions do inform against me, 
And spur my dull revenge! What is a man,, 
If his chief good, and market of his time, 
Be but to sleep and feed? a beast, no more. 
Sure, He, that made us with such large discourse 
Looking before and after, gave us not 
That capability and godlike reason, 


w 


SC. IV. _ PRINCE OF DENMARK. 323 


To fust in us unus’d. Now, whether it be 
Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple 
Of thinking too precisely on th’ event, — 
A thought which, quarter’d, hath but one part wis- 
*” dom, 
And ever three parts coward, —I do not know 
Why yet I live to say, “This thing’s to do ;” 
Sith I have cause, and will, and strength, and means, 
To do’t. Examples, gross as earth, exhort me: 
Witness, this army of such mass and charge, 
Led by a delicate and tender prince, 
Whose spirit, with divine ambition puff ’d, 
Makes mouths at the invisible event ; 
Exposing what is mortal and unsure, 
To all that fortune, death, and danger dare, 
Even for an egg-shell. Rightly to be great, 
Is not to stir without great argument ; 
But greatly to find quarrel in a straw, 
When honour’s at the stake. How stand I, then, 
That have a father kill’d, a mother stain’d, 
_Excitements of my reason and my blood,* 
And let all sleep? while, to my shame, I see 
The imminent death of twenty thousand men, 
That for a fantasy, and trick of fame, | 
Go to their graves like beds ; fight for a plot 
Whereon the numbers cannot try the cause ; 
Which is not tomb enough, and continent,’ 
T'o hide the slain ?—O!. from this time forth, 
My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth! 
“ [ Exit. 


4 Provocations which excite both my reason and my passions 
to vengeance. 

5 Continent means that which contains or encloses. ‘If there 
be no fulnesse, then is the continent greater than the content.” — 
Bacon’s Advancement of Learning. 


” 


324 HAMLET, ACT IV 


SCENE V. Elsinore. A Room in the Castle. 


Enter the Queen, and Horatio.’ 


Queen. I will not speak with her. * 
Hor. She is importunate ; indeed, distract : 
Her mood will needs be pitied. 
Queen. What would she have 7 
Hor. She speaks much of her father; says, she 
hears 
There’s tricks i’the world; and hems, and beats her 
heart 5 
Spurns enviously at straws ; ? speaks things in doubt, 
That carry but half sense: her speech is nothing, 
Yet the unshaped use of it doth move | 
The hearers to collection ;* they aim at it, 
And botch the words up fit to their own thoughts ; 
Which, as her winks and nods and gestures yiela 
them, 
Indeed would make one think, there might. be 
thought, 
Though nothing sure, yet much unhappily.’ 
Queen. "Twere good, she were spoken with; for 
she may strew 
Dangerous conjectures 1n ill-breeding minds. 
Let her come in. — [Exit Horatio. 
To my sick soul, as sin’s true nature is, 


1 In this stage-direction, and in the assigning of the speeches 
in this scene, we follogy the folio. The quartos add “and a Gen- 
tleman,” and assign Horatio’s first two speeches to him. H, 

2 Envy was continually used for malice, spite, or hatred. See 
The Merchant of Venice, Act iv. sc. 1, note 1. 

3 That is, to gather or deduce consequences, To aim is to 
guess. The quartos have yawn ; the folio, aim. 

4 Unhappily is here used in the sense of mischievously. See 
Much Ado about Nothing, Act ii. sc. 1, note 21. H. 


a eee 
trate 4 es oe ee a 
5 hike ue 


OS ae 


— 
4 


SC. Vs ‘PRINCE OF DENMARK.  . ‘305 


Each toy seems prologue to some great amiss :° 
So full of artless jealousy is guilt, 
It spills itself in fearing to be spilt. 


Re-enter Horatio, with OPHELIA.® 


Oph. Where is the beauteous majesty of Dene 
mark 27 
Queen. How now, Ophelia ! 


Boer [Sings.] How should I your true love know 
From another one ? 
By his cockle hat and staff, 
And his sandal shoon.® 


Queen. Alas, sweet lady ! what imports thissong ? 
Oph. Say you? nay,-pray you, mark. 


{Sings.] He is dead and gone, lady, 
He is dead and gone; 
At his head a grass-green turf, 
At his heels a stone. 


O, ho! 
Queen. Nay, but, Ophelia, — 


5 Shakespeare is not singular in the use of amiss as a substan- 
tive. Several instances are adduced by Mr, Nares in his Glossary. 
« Each toy’’ is each trifle. 

6 In the quarto of 1603, this stage-direction is curious as show- 
ing that Ophelia was originally made to play an accompaniment to 
her singing. It reads thus: “ Enter Ophelia, playing on a lute, 
and her hair down, singing.” H. 

7 There is no part of this play in its representation on the stage 
more pathetic than this scene; which, I suppose, proceeds from 
the utter insensibility Ophelia has to her own misfortunes. A great 
sensibility, or none at all, seems to produce the same effects. - In 
the latter case the audience supply what is wanting, and with the 
former they sympathize. — Sir J. REYNoLDs. 

8 These were the badges of pilgrims. The cockle shell was an 
emblem of their intention to go-beyond sea. The habit being held 
sacred, was often assumed as a disguise in love-adventures. In 
The Old Wive’s Tale, by Peele, 1595: « T will give thee a palmer’s 
staff of ivory, and a scallop shell of beaten gold.” 


VOL. X. 28 


326 HAMLET, ACT IV. 
Oph. Pray you, mark. 


[Sings.] White his shroud as the mountain snow, 


Enter the King. 
Queen. Alas! look here, my lord. 


Oph. Larded with sweet flowers ;° 
Which bewept to the grave did not go, 
With true-love showers. 


King. How do you, pretty lady ? 

Oph. Well, God’ield you!’° They say, the owl 
was a baker’s daughter."' Lord! we know what we 
are, but know not what we may be. God be at your 
table ! 

King. Conceit upon her father. 

Oph. Pray you, let’s have no words of this ; but 
when they ask you what it means, say you this: 


To-morrow is St. Valentine’s day, 
All in the morning betime, 

And I a maid at your window, 
T'o be your Valentine: ” 


9 Larded is garnished. The quartos have all after larded. — 
In the next line, the quartos, all but the first, have ground instead 
of grave; and all the old copies read, “did not go;’’ which is 
against both sense and metre, and was therefore considered an 
error by Pope; but it seems that Ophelia purposely alters the song, 
to suit the “obscure funeral” of her father. H. 

10 That is, God yield, or reward you. 

11 This is said to be a common tradition in Gloucestershire. 
Mr. Douce relates it thus: “Our Saviour went into a baker’s 
shop where they were baking, and asked for some bread to eat. 
The mistress of the shop immediately put a piece of dough in 
the oven to bake for him; but was reprimanded by her daughter, 
who, insisting that the piece of dough was too large, reduced it to 
a very small size. The dough, however, immediately began to 
swell, and presently became of a most enormous size. Where- 
upon the baker’s daughter cried out, ‘Heugh, heugh, heugh’, 
which owl-like noise probably induced our Saviour to transform 
ber into that bird for her wickedness.” The story is told to deter 
ehildren from illiberal behaviour to the poor. 

12 The origin of the choosing of Valentines has not been clearly 


SC.V.=S-=«.-~——«&PRRNCE. OF’ DENMARK. > SOR 


Then up he rose, and don’d his clothes, 
And dupp’d the chamber deor ; 
. Let in the maid, that out a maid 
Never departed more. 


King. Pretty Ophelia ! 
oe Indeed, la! without an oath, I'll make an 
end on’t: 


By Gis, and by St. Charity, 
Alack, and fie for shame ! 

Young men will do’t, if they come to’t ; 
By cock, they are to blame."* 


Quoth she, before you tumbled me, 
You promis’d me to wed: 


He answers, — 


So would I ha’ done, by yonder sun, 
An thou hadst not come to my bed. 


King. How long hath she been thus? 
Oph. 1 hope all will be well: We must be 
patient ; but I cannot choose but weep, to think 


developed. Mr. Douce traces it to a Pagan custom of the same 
kind during the Lupercalia feasts in honour of Pan and Juno, cele- 
brated in the month of February by the Romans. The anniver- 
sary of the good bishop, or Saint Valentine, happening in this 
month, the pious early promoters of Christianity placed this pop- 
ular custom under the patronage of the saint, in order to eradicate 
the notion of its pagan origin. In France the Valantin was a 
moveable feast, celebrated on the first Sunday in Lent, which was 
called the jour des brandons, because the boys carried about light- 
ed torches on that day. It is very probable that the saint has 
nothing to do with the custom ; his legend gives no clue to any such 
supposition. ‘The popular notion that the birds choose their mates 
about this period has its rise in the poetical world of fiction. 

13 To dup is to do up, as to don is to do on. Thus in Damon 
and Pythias, 1582: «The porters are drunk ; will they not dup 
the gate to-day?” The phrase probably had its origin from doing: 

up or lifting the latch. In the old cant language to dup the gyger 
was to open the door. 

14 For an explanation of the phrase, “ By cock,” see The Merry 
Wives of Windsor, Act i. se. 1, note 32. H. 


328 HAMLET, ACT IV. 


/ 
they would lay him i’the cold ground. My brother 
shall know of it; and so I thank you for your good 
counsel. Come, my coach! Good night, ladies- 
good night, sweet ladies: good night, good night. 


[ Exit. 
King. Follow her close; give her good watch, I 
pray you. — [Eat Horatio. 


O.! this is the poison of deep grief; it springs 

All from her father’s death. And now, behold, 

O Gertrude, Gertrude ! 

When sorrows come, they come not single spies, 

But in battalions. First, her father slain ; 

Next, your son gone; and he most violent author 

Of his own just remove: the people muddied, 

Thick and unwholesome in their thoughts and whis- 
pers, 

For good Polonius’ death; and we have done but 
greenly, 

In hugger-mugger to inter him:’* poor Ophelia 

Divided from herself and her fair judgment, 

Without the which we are pictures, or mere beasts: 

Last, and as much containing as all these, 

Her brother is in secret come from France ; 

Feeds on his wonder, keeps himself in clouds, 

And wants not buzzers to infect his ear 

With pestilent speeches of his father’s death ; 

Wherein necessity, of matter beggar’d, 


15 Hugger-mugeer occurs in the same sense in North’s Platareh, 
Life of Brutus: «“ When this was done, they came to talke of 
Ceesars will and testament, and of his funerals and tombe. Then, 
Antonius thinking good his testament should be read openly, and 
that his bodie should be honourably buried, and not tz hugeger- 
mugger, lest the people might thereby take occasion to be worse 
offended ; Cassius stoutly spake against it, bat Brutus went in 
with the motion.” ‘The phrase is thus explained by Florio : “Clan- 
destinare, to hide or conceal by stealth, or in hugger-mugger.” 

H. 


ee 


$C. Vi. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 329 


Will nothing stick our person to arraign 

In ear and ear. O, my dear Gertrude! this, 

Like to a murdering-piece,’® in many places 

Gives me superfluous death ! [A Noise within. 
Queen. Alack! what noise is this 2°’ 


Enter a Gentleman. 


King. Attend! ; 

Where are my Switzers?’® Let them guard the 
door. 

What is the matter? 

‘Gent. Save yourself, my lord! 
The ocean, overpeering of his list,’° 
Eats not the flats with more impetuous haste, 
Than young Laertes, in a riotous head, 
O’erbears your officers. The rabble call him lord ; 
And—as the world were now but to begin,”° 
Antiquity forgot, custom not known, 
The ratifiers and props of every word — 
They cry, ‘Choose we; Laertes shall be king!” 
Caps, hands, and tongues applaud it to the clouds,. 
«‘ Laertes shall be king, Laertes king!” 


16 A murdering-piece, or murderer, was a small piece of artil- 
lery. “Visiere meurtriere, a port-hole for a murthering-piece in 
the forecastle of a ship.’—CoTGRAVE. Case shot, filled with 
small bullets, nails, old iron, &c., was often used in these murder- 
ers. This accounts for the raking fire attributed to them in the 
text. 

17 This speech is found only in the folio. 

18 Switzers, for royal guards. ‘The Swiss, were then, as since, 
mercenary soldiers of any nation that could afford to pay them. 

19 That is, swelling beyond his bounds. 

20 As has here the force of as if. The explanation sometimes 
given of the passage is, that the rabble are the ratifiers and props 
ot every id/e word. The plain sense is, that antiquity and custom 
are the ratifiers and props of every sound word touching the mate 
ter in hand, the ordering of human society and the State. =H. 


28 * 3 


ws 


330 HAMLET, ACT IV. 


Queen. How cheerfully on the false trail they cry 
O! this is counter, you false Danish dogs.”* 
y Ss 
King. The doors are broke. [ Noise within, 


Enter Larates, armed; Danes following. 


Laer. Where is this king ?— Sirs, stand you all 
without. 
Danes. No, let’s come in. 
Laer. I pray you, give me leave. 
Danes. We will, we will. 
[ They retire without the Door. 
Laer. I thank you: keep the door. —O, thou vile 
king! ' 
Give me my father. 
Queen. Calmly, good Laertes. 
Laer. That drop of blood that’s calm proclaims 
me bastard ; 
Cries, cuekold, to my father; brands the harlot 
Even here, between the chaste unsmirched brow 
Of my true mother.” 
« King. What is the cause, Laertes, 
That thy rebellion looks so giant-like ? — 
Let him go, Gertrude ; do not fear our person: 
There’s such divinity doth hedge a king, 
That treason can but peep to what it would, 
Acts little of his will.2*— Tell me, Laertes, 
Why thou art thus incens’d. —Let him go, Ger- 
trude. — 
Speak, man. 


21 Hounds are said to run counter when they are upon a false 
scent, or hunt it by the heel, running backward and mistaking the 
course of the game. 

* 22 Unsmirched is unsullied, spotless. 

23 « Proofs,” says Coleridge, «as indeed all else is, that Shake- 
speare never intended us to see the King with Hamlet’s eyes ; 
thougl , I suspect, the managers have long done so,” H. 


sc. V PRINCE OF DENMARK. Bel 


Laer. Where is my father ? 
King. Dead. 
Queen. But not by him. 
King. Let him demand his fill. 
Laer. How came he dead? I'll not be juggled 
with : 
To hell, allegiance! vows, to the blackest devil ! 
Conscience, and grace, to the profoundest pit ! 
I dare damnation. To this point I stand, — 
That both the worlds I give to negligence, 
Let come what comes, only I’ll be reveng’d 
Most throughly for my father. 
King. Who shall stay you ? 
Laer. My will, not all the world’s: 
And, for my means, I’ll husband them so well, 
They shall go far with little. 
King. Good Laertes, 
If you desire to know the certainty 
Of your dear father’s death, is’t writ in your re- 
venge, 

That, sweepstake, you will draw both friend and 
foe, 
Winner and loser ? 

Laer. None but his enemies. 
King. Will you know them, then? 
Laer. To his good friends thus wide I'll ope my 
arms ; 
And Itke the kind life-rendering pelican, 
Repast them with my blood.” 


4 


24 The pelican is a fabulous bird, often referred to by the old 
poets for illustration. It Was also much used as a significant or- 
nament in Medieval church architecture, the pelican being repre- 
senied as an eagle. An old book, entitled « A Choice of Emblems 
and other Devices, by Geffrey Whitney, 1586,” contains a picture 
of an eagle on her nest, tearing open her breas* to feed her young: 
beneath, are the following lines: 


332 HAMLET, » CR 


King. Why, now you speak 
Like a good child, and a true gentleman. 
That I am guiltless of your father’s death, 
And am most sensibly in grief for it, 
It shall as level to your judgment pierce * 
As day does to your eye. 
Danes. { Within. | Let her come in. 
Laer. How now! what noise is that ? 


Re-enter OPHELIA.”° 


O heat, dry up my brains! tears seven times salt, 
Burn out the sense and virtue of mine eye !— 

By Heaven, thy madness shall be paid with weight, 
Till our scale turn the beam. O, rose of May! 
Dear maid, kind sister, sweet Ophelia ! — 

O heavens! is’t possible, a young maid’s wits 
Should be as mortal as an old man’s life ? 

Nature is fine in love; and, where ’tis fine, 

It sends some precious instance of itself 

After the thing it loves.”” 


Oph. They bore him barefac’d on the bier; 
Hey non nonny, nonny, hey nonny: " 
And in his grave rain’d many a tear ;— 


Fare you well, my dove! 


“The pellican, for to revive her younge, 
Doth pierce her brest, and geve them of her blood: 
Then searche your rest, arid; as you have with tongue, 
With penne proceede to doe our countrie good.” H. 


5 The folio has pierce ; the quartos, pear, meaning, of course, 
appear. The latter is both awkward in language and tame in 
sense. Understanding /evel in the sensg of direct pierce gives an 
apt and clear enough meaning. H. 

26 Modern éditions commonly add here, “ fantastically dressed 
with Straws and Flowers.” There is no authority, and not much 
occasion, for any such stage-direction. H. 

27 This and the two preceding lines are found only in the folio 5 
as is also the second line of the next speech. H. 


SG. Wier, +: PRINCE OF DENMARK. * 333 
Laer. Hadst thou thy wits, and didst persuade 
revenge, 


It could not move thus. 
Oph. You must sing, — 


Down a-down, an you call him a-down-a. 


O, how the wheel becomes it!** It is the false 
steward, that stole his master’s daughter.”° 
er. This nothing’s more than matter. 
Oph. There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance ; 
pray you, love, remember: and there is pansies, 
that’s for thoughts.” 


28 The wheel is the burthen of a ballad, from the Latin rota, a 
round, which is usually accompanied with a burthen frequently re~ 
peated. Thus also, in old French, roterie signified such a round 
or catch. Steevens forgot to note from whence he made the fol- 
lowing extract, though he knew it was fronr the preface to some 
black letter collection of songs or sonnets: “The song was ac- 
counted a good one, though it was not moche graced with the 
wheele, which in no wise accorded with the subject matter there- 
of.’ It should be remembered that the old musical instrument 
called a rote, from its wheel, was also termed vielle, quasi wheel. 

29 Meaning, probably, some old ballad, of which no traces have 
survived. H. 

30 Our ancestors gave to almost every flower and plant its em- 
blematic meaning, and, like the ladies of the east, made them al- 
most as expressive as written language. Perdita, in The Winter’s 
Tale, distributes her flowers in the same manner as Ophelia, and 
some of them with the same meaning. The Handfull of Pleasant 
Delites, 1584, has a ballad called « A Nosegaie alwaies sweet for 
Lovers to send for Tokens,’”’ where we find, — 


« Rosemarie is for remembrance 
Betweene us day and night.” 


Rosemarie had this attribute because it was said to strengthen the 
memory, and was therefore used as a token of remembrance and 
affection between lovers. Why pansies (pensées) are emblems 
of thoughts is obvious. ~ Fennel was emblematic of flattery 
Browne, in his Britannia’s Pastorals, says, — 


“ The columbine, in tawny often taken, 
Is then ascrib’d to such as are forsaken.” 


Rue was for ruth ot repentance. It was also commonly called 


304 ™ HAMLET, . ACT IV. 


Laer. A document in madness; thoughts and 
remembrance fitted. 

Oph. There’s fennel for you, and columbines :— 
there’s rue for you, and here’s:some for me: we 
may call it herb of grace o’Sundays: — you may 
wear your rue with a difference. — There’s a daisy: 
I would give you some violets, but they wither’d 
all, when my father died.— They say, he made a 
good end, — 


[Sings.] For bonny sweet Robin is all my joy, — 


Laer. Thought and affliction,*’ passion, hell it- 
self, 
She turns to favour, and to prettiness. 


Oph. [Sing's.] And will he not come again ? 
And will he not come again ? 
No, no, he is dead; 
Go to thy death-bed ; 
He never will come again. 


His beard was as white as snow, 
All flaxen was his poll : 
: He is gone, he is gone, 
And we cast away moan: 
God ha’ mercy on his soul ! *? 


herb grace, probably from being accounted “a present remedy 
against all poison, and a potent auxiliary in exorcisms, all evil 
things fleeing from it.” Wearing it with a difference was an her- 
aldic term for a mark of distinction. The daisy was emblematic 
of a dissembler. The violet is for faithfulness, and is thus char- 
acterised in The Lover’s Nosegaie. 

31 Thought was used for grief, care, pensiveness. “ Curarum 
volvere in pectore. He will die for sorrow and thought.” — Ba- 
RET. ; 

32 Poor Ophelia in her madness remembers the ends of many 
old popular ballads. “Bonny Robin” appears to have been a 
favourite, for there were many others written to that tune. This 
last stanza is quoted with some variation in Eastward Ho! 1605, 
by Jonson, Marston, and Chapman. 


: eine aati N 


pak 


SC. V. PRINCE OF DENMARK. - 330 
And of all Christian souls! I pray God. God be 
wi’ you!*° [ Exit. 


Lger. Do you see this, O God? 

King. Laertes, I must common with your grief,** 
Or you deny me right. Go but apart; 
Make choice of whom your wisest friends you will, 
And they shall hear and judge ’twixt you and me. 
If by direct or by collateral hand 
They find us touch’d, we will our kingdom give, 
Our crown, our life, and all that we call ours, 


To you in satisfaction ; but, if not, 


Be you content to lend your patience to us, 
And we shall jointly labour with your soul 
To give it due content. 
Laer. Let this be so: 
His means of death, his obscure funeral, — 
No trophy, sword, nor hatchment, o’er his bones, 
No noble rite, nor formal ostentation, — 
Cry to be heard, as ’twere from heaven to earth, 
That I must call’t in question.*° 
King. So you shall ; 
And where th’ offence is, let the great axe fall. 
I pray you, go with me. [ Exeunt. 


33 The words, “I pray God,” are not in the quartos. H, 

34 The use of common asa verb, in the sense of making com- 
mon, or of having or feeling in common, is very frequent in the 
old writers. In this place, as in many others, it is usually changed 
to commune, with which it is nearly synonymous. We retain the 
old form, as giving a somewhat stronger sense, and also as suiting 
the measure better. H. 

35 The funerals of knights and persons of rank were made with 
great ceremony and ostentation formerly. Sir Jobn Hawkins ob- 
serves that «the sword, the helmet, the gauntlet, spurs, and tabard 
are still hung over the grave of every knight,” 


. 
300 HAMLET, ACT IV 


SGENE VI. Another Room in the Same. 


Enter Horatio and a Servant. * 


Hor. What are they that would speak with me? 

Serv. Sailors, sir:’ they say they have letters 
for you. 

Hor. Let them come in.— [Exit Servant. 
I do not know from what part of the world 
I should be greeted, if not from lord Hamlet. 


Enter Sailors. 


1 Sail. God bless you, sir. 
Hor. Let Him bless thee too. 
1 Sail. He shall, sir, an’t please Him. There’s 


a letter for you, sir: it comes from th’ ambassador 


that was bound for England ; if your name be Ho- 
ritio, as I am let to know it is. 


Hor. [Reads.] Horatio, when thou shalt have overlook’d 
this, give these fellows some means to the king: they have 
letters for him. Ere we were two days old at sea, a pirate 
of very warlike appointment gave us chase. Finding our- 
selves too slow of sail, we put on a compelled valour ; and 
in the grapple I boarded them: on the instant, they got 
clear of our ship; so I alone became their prisoner. They 
have dealt with me like thieves of mercy ; but they knew 
what they did; I am to do a good turn for them. Let the 
king have the letters I have sent; and repair thou to me 
with as much haste as thou would’st fly death. I have 
words to speak in thine ear, will make thee dumb ; yet are 
they much too light for the bore of the matter.” These 
good fellows will bring thee where I am. Rosencrantz 
and Guildenstern hold their course for England: of them 
I have much to tell thee. Farewell: 

He that thou knowest thine, HAMLET. 


1 The quartos read Sea-faring men instead of Sailors. H. 
2 The bore is the caliber of a gun. 


re 


a 


SC. VII. = PRINCE OF DENMARK. 307 


Come, I will give you way for these your letters ; 
And do’t the speedier, that you may direct me 
To him from whom you brought them. [ Exeunt. 


SCENE VII. Another Room in the Same. 


Enter the King and LAERTES. | 


King. Now must your conscience my acquittance 
seal, 
And you must put me in your heart for friend ; 
Sith you have heard, and with a knowing ear, 
That he which hath your noble father slain 
Pursued my life. 

Laer. It well appears :— But tell me, 

Why you proceeded not against these feats, 

So crimeful’ and so capital in nature, 

As by your safety, greatness, wisdom, all things else, 
You mainly were stirr’d up. 

King. O! for two special reasons ; 
Which may to you, perhaps, seem much unsinew’d, 
But yet to me they are strong. The queen, his 

mother, 
Lives almost by his looks ; and, for myself, 
(My virtue, or my plague, be it either which,) 
She’s so conjunctive to my life and soul, 
That, as the star moves not but in his sphere, 
I could not but by her. The other motive, 
Why to a public count I might not go, 
Is the great love the general gender” bear him ; 
Who, dipping all his faults in their affection, 
Would, like the spring that turneth wood to stone, 


1 So the folio; the quartos, eriminal. 
2-That is, the common race of the people. We have the gen- 
eral and the million in other places in the same sense. 


VOL. X. 29 32 


338 HAMLET, ACT TVs 


Convert his gyves to graces. So that my arrows, 
Too slightly timber’d for so loud a wind,” 
Would have reverted to my bow again, 
And not where I had aim’d them. 
Laer. And so have I a noble father lost ; 
A sister driven into desperate terms 5 
Whose worth, if praises may go back again,” 
Stood challenger on mount of all the age 
For her perfections. But my revenge will come. 
King. Break not your sleeps for that: you must 
not think 
That we are made of stuff so flat and dull, 
That we can let our beard be shook with danger, 
And think it pastime. You shortly shall hear more: 
I lov’d your father, and we love ourself ; 
And that, I hope, will teach you to imagine, — 
How now! what news?* 


Enter a Messenger. 


Mess. Letters, my lord, from Hamlet : 
This to your majesty ; this to the queen. 

King. From Hamlet! who brought them ? 

Mess. Sailors, my lord, they say; I saw them not: 
They were given me by Claudio; he receiv’d them 
Of him that brought them. 

King. Laertes, you shall hear them. — 
Leave us. [ Exit Messenger. 


[Reads.] High and mighty, you shall know, I am set na- 
ked on your kingdom. ‘T'o-morrow shall I beg leave to see 
your kingly eyes; when I shall, first asking your pardon 


3 « Lighte shaftes cannot stand in a rowgh wind.” — AscHAM, 

4 «If IT may praise what has been, but is now no more.” 

5 The words, “ How now! what news?” and also a part of 
the answer, “Letters, my lord, from Hamlet,’ are not in the 
quartos. H. 


SC. Vit .- PRINCE OF DENMARK. . ooo 


thereunto, recount th’ occasions of my sudden and more 
strange return.® HAMuer. 


What should this mean! Are all the rest come 
‘ back ? 
Or is it some abuse, and no such thing? 
Laer. Know you the hand ? 
King. Tis Hamlet’s character. « Naked,” — 
And, in a postscript here, he says, “alone:” 
Can you advise me ? 
Laer. 1m lost in it, my lord. But let him come: 
It warms the very sickness in my heart, 
‘Vhat I shall live and tell him to his teeth, 
«Thus diddest thou.” 
King. If it be so, Laertes, — 
As how should it be so, how otherwise ? — 
Will you be rul’d by me? 
Laer. Ay, my lord; 
So you will not o’errule me to a peace. 
King. 'To thine own peace. If he be now re- 
turn’d, 
As checking at his voyage,’ and that he means 
No more to undertake it, I will work him 
To an exploit, now ripe in my device, | 
Under the which he shall not choose but fall; 
And for his death no wind of blame shall breathe, 
But even his mother shall uncharge the practice, 
And eall it accident. 
Laer. My lord, I will be rul’d; 
The rather, if you could devise it,so, 
That I might be the organ. 


6 The words, “and more strange,” are in the folio only. H. 

7 Thus the folio: the undated quarto and that of 1611 read “ As 
liking not” for “As checking at ;” the other quartos, “As the 
king at.” To check at is a term in falconry, meaning to start 
away or fly off from the lure. See Twelfih Night, Act ii. se. 5, 
note 10, u 


ie 


340. HAMLET, ACT IV- 


King. Tt falls right. 
You have been talk’d of since your travel much, 
And that in Hamlet’s hearing, for a quality 
Wherein they say you shine: your sum of parts 
Did not together pluck such envy from him, 
As did that one; and that, in my regard, 
Of the unworthiest siege.® 
Laer. What part is that, my lord? 
King. A very riband in the cap of youth,” 
Yet needful too; for youth no less becomes 
The light and careless livery that it wears, 
Than settled age his sables and ne weeds, 
Importing health and graveness.’ °__T'wo months 
since, 
Here was a gentleman of Normandy, — 
I have seen, myself, and serv’d against the French, 
And they can well on horseback ; but this gallant 
Had witchcraft in’t ; he grew unto his seat; 
And to such wondrous doing brought his horse, 
As he had been incorps’d and demi-natur’d 
With the brave beast: so far he topp’d oy eum: 
That I, in forgery of shapes and tricks,” 
Come short of what he did. 
Laer. A Norman was’t? 
King. A Norman. 
Laer. Upon my life, Lamord. 
King. The very same. 


8 The Poet again uses siege for seat, that is, place or rank, in 
Einello, Act i. se. 2: “I fetch my life and being from men of royal 
Fees The usage was not uncommon. H. 

9 We have elsewhere found very used in the sense of mere. 
H. 

10 Thus far of this speech, and all the three preceding speeches 
are wanting in the folio. H. 

11 That is, in the imagination of shapes and tricks, or feats. 
This use of forge and forgery was not unfrequent.— To top is 
to surpass. See King Lear, Acti. sc. 2, note 3. A. 


sc. VII. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 341 


Laer. I know him well: he is the brooch, indeed, 

And gem of all the nation. 

King. He made confession of you ; 

And gave you such a masterly report, 

For art and exercise in your defence,'” 

And for your rapier most especially, 

That he cried out, ’twould be a sight indeed, 

If one-could match you: the scrimers of their na- 

. tion,’® 

He swore, had neither motion, guard, nor eye, 

If you oppos’d them. Sir, this report of his 

Did Hamlet so envenom with his envy, 

That he could nothing do, but wish and beg 

Your sudden coming o’er, to play with you. 

Now, out of this, — 
Laer. What out of this, my lord? 
King. Laertes, was your father dear to you? 

Or are you like the painting of a sorrow, 

A face without a heart? 

Laer. Why ask you this? 
King. Not that I think you did not love your 
father, 

But that I know love is begun by time ; " 

And that I see, in passages of proof, 

Time qualifies the spark and fire of it. 

There lives within the very flame of love’® 

A kind of wick, or snuff, that will abate it: 

And nothing is at a like goodness still ; 


12 Science of defence, that is, fencing, 

13 Scrimers, fencers, from escrimeur, Fr. This unfavourable 
description of French swordsmen is not in the folio, 

14 As love is begun by time, and has its gradual increase, so 
time qualifies and abates it. Passuges of proof are transactions 
of daily experience. , ; 

15 This and the nine following lines are not in the folio. #. 


Pe 


¢ 


342 HAMLET, ACT IV 


For goodness, growing to a plurisy,’° 

Dies in his own too-much. That we would do, 

We should do when we would ; for this ‘“* would” 
changes, 

And hath abatements and delays as many 

As there are tongues, are hands, are accidents ; 

And then this “should” is like a spendthrift’s sigh, 

That hurts by easing.’” But, to the quick othe 
ulcer. 

Hamlet comes back: What would you undertake, 

To show yourself your father’s son, in deed 

More than in words? 

Laer. To cut his throat i’the church. 
King. No place, indeed, should murder sane- 

tuarize 3 

Revenge should have no bounds. But, good Laer- 
tes, 

Will you do this, keep close within your chamber. 

Hamlet, return’d, shall know you are come home: 

We’ll put on those shall praise your excellence, 

And set a double varnish on the fame 

The Frenchman gave you; bring you, in fine, to- 
gether, 

And wager o’er your heads: he, being remiss, 

Most generous, and, free from all contriving,. 

Will not peruse the foils; so that with ease, 

Or with a little shuffling, you may choose 


16 Plurisy is superabundance ; the word was used in this sense, 
as if it came from plus, pluris. So in Massinger’s Unnatural 
Combat: “Thy plurisy-of goodness is thy ill;”” which Gifford 
explains “thy swperabundance of goodness.” i. 

"17 Mr. Blakeway justly observes, that “Sorrow for neglected 
opportunities and time abused seems most aptly compared to the 
sigh of a spendthrift ; — good resolutions not carried into effect are 
deeply injurious to the moral character. Like sighs, they hurt by 
easing ; they unburden the mind and satisfy the conscience, without 
producing any effect upon the conduct.” 


SC. VI. | PRINCE OF DENMARK. 343 


A sword unbated,'® and in a pass of practice 
Requite him for your father. 

Laer. I will. do’t ; 
And, for that purpose, I'll anoint my sword.” 
I bought an unction of a mountebank, 
So mortal, that but dip a knife in it, 
Where it draws blood no cataplasm so rare, 
Collected from all simples that have virtue 
Under the moon, can save the thing from death, 
That is but scratch’d withal: I'll touch my point 
With this contagion, that if I gall him slightly, 
It may be death.” 

King. Let’s further think of this 5 
Weigh, what convenience, both of time and means, 
May fit us to our shape. If this should fail, 

And that our drift look through our bad performance, 
’T were better not assay’d: therefore this project 
Should have a back, or second, that might hold, 


18 That is, unblunted. To date, or rather to rebate, was to make 
dull. ‘Thus in Love’s Labour’s Lost: “ That honour which shall 
bate his scythe’s keen edge.” — Pass of practice is an insidious 
thrust. 

19 Warburton having pronounced Laertes “a good character,” 
Coleridge thereupon makes the following note: « Mercy on War- 
-burton’s notion of goodness! Please to refer to the seventh scene 
of this Act ; — ‘I will do’t; and, for this purpose, I'll anoint my 
sword,’ — uttered by Laertes after the King’s description of Ham- 
Jet: ‘He, being remiss, most generous, and free from all contriv- 
ing, will not peruse the foils.’ Yet I acknowledge that Shake- 
speare evidently wishes, as much as possible, to spare the character 
of Laertes, —to break the extreme turpitude of his consent to be- 
come an agent and accomplice of the King’s treachery 3;— and to 
this a: 1 he re-introduces Ophelia at the close of this scene, to af- 
ford a probable stimulus of passion in her brother.” ni. 

20 Ritson has exclaimed against the villanous treachery of Laer 
tes in this horrid plot: he observes “there is more occasion that 
he should be pointed out for an object of abhorrence, as he is a 
character we are led to respect and admire in some preceding 
scenes.” In the quarto of 1603 this contrivance originates with 
the king. 


344. HAMLET, 


If this should blast in proof.’ Soft!—Jet me 
see :— 

We'll make a solemn wager on your cunnings,””» — 

arhats 

When in your motion you are hot and dry, 

(As make your bouts more violent to that end,) 

And that he calls for drink, Pll have prepar’d him 

A chalice for the nonce ; whereon but sipping, 

If he by chance escape your venom’d stuck,”* 

Our purpose may hold there. But stay! whatnoise? 


Enter the Queen. 


How, sweet queen ! ** 

Queen. One woe doth tread upon another’s heel, 
So fast they follow. — Your sister’s drown’d, Laertes. 

Laer. Drown’d! O, where ? 

Queen. There is a willow grows aslant a brook,” 
That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream : 
There with fantastic garlands did she come, 

Of crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples, 


21 That is, as fire-arms sometimes burst in proving their 
strength. 

22 Cunning is skill. 

23 A stuck is a thrust. Stoccata, Ital. Sometimes called a 
staccado in Finglish. 

24 These words occur only in the folio. —“ That Laertes,’” says 
Coleridge, “ might be excused in some degree for not cooling, the 
Act concludes with the affecting death of Ophelia ; who in the be- 
ginning Jay like a little projection of land into a lake or stream, 
covered with spray-flowers, quietly reflected in the quiet waters 5 
but at Jength is undermined or Joosened, and becomes a faery isle, 
and after a brief vagrancy sinks almost without an eddy.” HH.  ~* 

29 Thus the folio; the quartos, all but the first, read “ ascawnt 
the brook.” Also, in the next line but one, the quartos have make 
instead of come. — This exquisite passage is deservedly celebrated. 
Nothing could better illustrate the Poet’s power to make the des- 
cription of a thing better than the thing itself, by giving us his eyes 
to see it with. H. 


TS 


St. VIL" PRINCE OF DENMARK. 345 


That liberal shepherds give a grosser name,”® 
But our cold maids do dead men’s fingers call them: 
‘There, on the pendent boughs her coronet weeds 
Clambering to hang, an envious sliver broke ; 
When down her weedy trophies, and herself, 
Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread 
wide, 
And, mermaid-like, awhile they bore her up ; 
Which time, she chanted snatches of old lauds 3 *” 
As one incapable of her own distress, 
Or like a creature native and indued 
Unto that element: but long it could not be, 
Till that her garments, heavy with their drink, 
Pull’d the poor wretch from her melodious lay 
To muddy death. 
Laer. Alas! then, she is drown’d? 
Queen. Drown’d, drown’d. 
Laer. Too much of water hast thou, poor Ophelia, 
And therefore I forbid my tears: but yet 
It is our trick ; nature her custom holds, 
Let shame say what it will: when these are gone, 
The woman will be out.— Adieu, my lord! 
I have a speech of fire, that fain would blaze, 
But that this folly drowns it. [ Exit. 
King. Let’s follow, Gertrude ; 
How much I had to do to calm his rage! 
Now fear I, this will give it start again ; 
Therefore, let’s follow. [ Exeunt. 


26 The ancient botanical name of the long purples was testiculis 
morionis, or orchis priapiscus. The grosser name to which the 
queen alludes is sufficiently known in many parts of England. It 
had kindred appellations in other languages. In Sussex it is said 
to be called dead men’s hands. Liberal here means free-spoken, 
licentious. 

27 That is, old hymns or songs of praise. The folio has tunes 
instead of lauds ; which, besides that it loses a fine touch of pa- 
thos, does not agree so well with chanting. — Incapable is evidently 
used in the sense of unconscious. H. 


346 HAMLET, ACT V. 


ACT V. 


SCENE I. <A Church-Yard. 


Enter two Clowns, with Spades, §c. 


1 Clo. Is she to be buried in Christian burial, that 
wilfully seeks her own salvation ? 

2 Clo. I tell thee she is; therefore make her 
grave, straight:' the crowner hath set on her, and 
finds it Christian burial. 

1 Clo. How can that be, unless she drowned 
herself in her own defence 2? 

2 Clo. Why, ’tis found so. 

1 Clo. It must be se offendendo; it cannot be 
else. For here lies the point: If I drown myself 
wittingly, it argues an act; and an act hath three 
branches ; it is, to act, to do, and to perform: ar- 
gal, she drown’d herself wittingly.’ 


1 Straight for straightway ; a common usage. H. 

is Shakespeare’s frequent and correct use of legal terms and 
phrases has led to the belief that he must have served something 
of an apprenticeship in the Jaw. Among the legal authorities 
studied in his time, were Plowden’s Commentaries, a black-letter 
book, written in the old law French. One of the cases reported 
by Plowden, is that of Dame Hales, regarding the forfeiture of a 
lease, in consequence of the suicide of Sir James Hales ; and Sir 
John Hawkins has pointed out, that this rich burlesque of « crown- 
er’s-quest law”? was probably intended as a ridicule on certain 
passages in that case. He produces the following speech of one 
of the counsel : “ Walsh said that the act consists of three parts. 
The first is the imagination, which is a reflection or meditation of 
the mind, whether or no it is convenient for him to destroy himself, 
and what way it can be done. The second is the resolution, which 
is a determination of the mind to destroy himself, and to do it in 
this or that particular way. The third is the perfection, which is 
the execution of what the mind has resolved to do. And this per- 
fection consists of two parts, the beginning and the end. The be- 


ee 


SC. I. - PRINCE OF DENMARK. 347 


2 Clo. Nay, but hear you, goodman delver. 

1 Clo. Give me leave. Here lies the water ; 
good: here stands the man; good: If the man go 
to this water, and drown himself, it is, will he, nill 
he, he goes; mark you that: but if the water come 
to him, and drown him, he drowns not himself: 
argal, he that is not guilty of his own death short- 
ens not his own life.’ 

2 Clo. But is this law? 

1 Clo. Ay, marry, is’t ; crowner’s-quest law. 

2 Clo. Will you ha’ the truth on’t? If this had 
not been a gentlewoman, she should have been 
buried out of Christian burial. 

1 Clo. Why, there thou say’st: and the more 
pity, that great folks shall have countenance in 
this world to drown or hang themselves, more than 
their even-Christian.* Come, my spade. ‘There is 
no ancient gentlemen but gardeners, ditchers, and 
grave-makers ; they hold up Adam’s profession. 

2 Clo. Was he a gentleman ? 


ginning is the doing of the act which causes the death; and the 
end is the death, which is only a sequel to the act.” H. 

3 We must here produce another passage from Plowden, as 
given by Hawkins. It is the reasoning of one of the judges, and 
is nearly as good as that in the text: «Sir James Hales was dead, 
and how came he to his death? It may be answered, by drown- 
ing; and who drowned him? Sir James Hales. And when did 
he drown him® in his life-time. So that Sir James Hales, being 
alive, caused Sir James Hales to die; and the act of the living 
man was the death of the dead man. And then for this offence it 
is reasonable to punish the living man who committed the offence, 
and not the dead man. But how can he be said to be punished 
alive, when the punishment comes after his death? Sir, this can 
be done no other way but by divesting out of him, from the time 
of the act done in his life which was the cause of his death, the 
title and property of those things which he had in his life-time.” 

H. 

4 Even-Christian for fellow-Christian, was the old mode of ex- 
pression; and is tobe found in Chaucer and the Chroniclers. Wic- 
liffe has even-servant for fellow-servant. 


348 ° ; HAMLET, ACT V 


1 Clo. He was the first that ever bore arms. 

2 Clo. Why, he had none.’ 

1 Clo. What! art a heathen?) How dost thou 
understand the Scripture? The Scripture says Adam 
digg’d: could he dig without arms ? I'll put another 
question to thee: if thou answerest me not to the 
purpose, confess thyseff— 

2 Clo. Go to. 

1 Clo. What is he, that builds stronger than either 
the mason, the shipwright, or the carpenter 1 

2 Clo. The Sallovp ieee for that frame out- 
lives a thousand tenants.° 

1 Clo. I like thy wit well, in good faith: the 
gallows does well: But how does it well? it does 
well to those that do ill: now, thou dost ill, to say 
the gallows is built stronger than the church: ar- 
gal, the gallows may do well to thee. To’t again; 
come. 

2 Clo. Who builds stronger than a mason, a ship- 
wright, or a carpenter ? 

1 Clo. Ay, tell me that, and unyoke.’ 

2 Clo: Marry, now I can tell. 

1 Clo. To't. 

2 Clo. Mass, I cannot tell. 


Enter Hamuet and Horatio, at a distance. 


1 Clo. Cudgel thy brains no more about it; for 
your dull ass will not mend his pace with beating: 
and, when you are ask’d this question next, say, a 
grave-maker: the houses that he makes last till 


5 This speech and the next, as far as arms, are not in the 
quartos. ‘ 

8 So the folio; frame is not in the quartos. H. 

7 This was a common phrase for giving over or ceasing to do 
a thing, a metaphor Bored from the ie bind of oxen at the end 
of their labour. 


oe 


sc. I. _ PRINCE OF DENMARK. 349 


doomsday. Go, get thee to Yaughan; fetch me a 
stoop of liquor. [ Exit 2 Clown. 


[Sings.] In youth, when I did love, did love, [Digging-] 
Methought, it was very sweet, 
To contract, O! the time, for, ah! my behove 
O, methought, there was nothing meet.® 


Ham. Has this fellow no feeling of his business, 
that he sings at grave-making ? 

Hor. Custom hath made it in him a property of 
easiness. 


Ham. ’Tis e’en so: the hand of little employment 
hath the daintier sense. 


1 Clo. [Sings.] But age, with his stealing steps, 
Hath claw’d me in his clutch, 
And hath shipp’d me intill the land, 
As if I had never been such. 


[Throws up a Skull. 


Ham. That skull had a tongue in it, and could 
sing once: how the knave jowls it to the ground, 
as if it were Cain’s jaw-bone, that did the first 
murder! This might be the pate of a politician, 


8 The original ballad from whence these stanzas are taken is 
printed in Tottel’s Miscellany, or Songes and Sonnettes by Lord 
Surrey and others, 1575. The ballad is attributed to Lord Vaux, 
and is printed by Dr. Percy in his Reliques of Ancient Poetry. 
The ohs and the ahs are caused by the forcible emission of the 
digger’s breath at each stroke of the mattock. The original runs 
thus : 


«TJ lothe that I did love, 
In youth that I thought swete: 
As time requires for my behove, 
Methinks they are not mete. 


“For age with stealing steps 
Hath claude me with his erowch; 
And lusty youthe away he leaps, 
As there had bene none such.” 


VOL. x. 30 


300 HAMLET, 


which this ass now o’erreaches; one that would 
circumvent God, might it not? 

Hor. It might, my lord. 

Ham. Or of a courtier, which could say, ‘* Good- 
morrow, sweet lord! How dost thou, good lord?” 
This might be my lord such-a-one, that prais’d my 
lord such-a-one’s horse, when he meant to beg it ; 
might it not? 

For. Ay, Oy lord. 

Ham. Why, e’en so; and now my lady Worm’s; ty 
chapless, and knock’d about the mazzard with a 
sexton’s spade: Here’s fine revolution, an we had 
the trick to see’t. Did these bones cost no more 
the breeding, but to play at loggets*® with ’em? 
mine ache to think on’t. 


1 Clo. [Sings.] A pickaxe and a spade, a spade, 
For and a shrouding sheet: 
O! a pit of clay for to be made 
For such a guest is meet. 
[Throws up another Skull. 


Ham. There’s another : why may not that be the 
skull of a lawyer? Where be his quiddits now, 
his quillets,’* his cases, his tenures, and. his tricks? 


9 The skull that was my lord such-a-one's is now my lady 
worm’s. 

10 Loggets are small logs or pieces of wood. Hence loggets 
was the name of an ancient rustic game, wherein a stake was fixed 
in the ground at which loggets were thrown; in short, a ruder kind 
vf quoit play. 

11 This is another stanza from the same ballad quoted i in note 8. 
¢ For and,’ says Mr. Dyce, “in the present version of the stanza, 
answers to And eke in that given by Percy.” So in Beaumont 
and Fletcher’s Knight of the Burning Pestle: “ Your squire doth 
come, and with him comes the lady, for and the Squire of Dam- 
sels, as I take it.” And in Middleton’s Fair Quarrel: “ A hippo- 
crene, a tweak, for and a fucus.” H. 

12 Quiddits are quirks, or subtle questions ; and quwillets are 
nice and frivolous distinctions. 'The etymology of this last fool: 


sc. I. _ PRINCE OF DENMARK. 351 


why does he suffer this rude knave now to knock 
him about the sconce ’* with a dirty shovel, and will 
not tell him of his action of battery? Humph! This 
fellow might be in’s time a great buyer of land, with 
his statutes, his recognizances, his fines, his double 
vouchers, his recoveries:'* Is this the fine of his 
fines, and the recovery of his recoveries, to have 
his fine pate full of fine dirt? will his vouchers 
vouch him no more of his purchases, and double 
ones too, than the length and breadth of a pair of 
indentures? The very conveyances of his lands 
will hardly lie in this box; and must the inheritor 
himself haye no more? ha? 

Hor. Not a jot more, my lord. 

Ham. Is not parchment made of sheep-skins ? 

Hor. Ay, my lord, and of calve-skins too. 

Ham. They are sheep, and calves, which seek out 
assurance in that.’? I will speak to this fellow. — 
Whose grave’s this, sir? 


ish word has plagued many learned heads. Blount, in his Glos- 
sography, clearly points out quod/ibet as the origin of it. Bishop 
Wilkins calls a quillet “a frivolousness.” 

13 Sconce was not unfrequently used for head. — The quartos 
have “mad knave.”’ In this speech, the folio has several other 
slight variations from the quartos; in which we follow the former. 

H. 

14 Shakespeare here is profuse of his legal learning. Ritson, a 
Jawyer, shall interpret for him: “A recovery with double voucher, 
is the one usually suffered, and is so called from two persons be- 
ing successively voucher, or called upon to warrant the tenant’s 
title. Both fines and recoveries are fictions of Jaw, used to con- 
vert an estate tail into a fee simple. Statutes are (not acts of 
parliament) but statutes merchant, and staple, particular modes of 
recognizance or acknowledgment for securing debts, which thereoy 
become a charge upon the party’s land. Statutes and recogni- 
zances are constantly mentioned together in the covenants of a 
purchase deed.” 

19 A quibble is here implied upon parchment ; deeds, which were 
always written on parchment, being in legal language “ common 
assurances,” 


3o2 _ -HAMLET, 


[Sings.] O, a pit of clay for to be made 
For such a guest is meet. 

Ham. J think it be thine, indeed ; for thou liest 
in’t. 

1 Clo. You lie out on’t, sir, and therefore it is not 
yours: for my part, I do not lie in’t, yet it is mine. 

Ham. Thou dost lie in’t, to be in’t, and say it 1s 
thine: ’tis for the dead, not for the quick; there- 
fore thou liest. 

1 Clo. ’Tis a quick lie, sir; “twill away again, 
from me to you. : 

Ham. What man dost thou dig it for? 

1 Clo. For no man, sir. 

Ham. What woman, then ? 

1 Clo. For none, neither. 

Ham. Who is to be buried in’t ? 


1 Clo. One that was a woman, sir; but, rest her | 


soul! she’s dead. 

Ham. How absolute the knave is! we must speak 
by the card,'* or equivocation will undo us. By 
the Lord, Horatio, these three years I have taken 
note of it; the age is grown so picked,”’ that the 
toe of the peasant comes so near the heel of the 
courtier, he galls his kibe. —How long hast thou 
been a.grave-maker ? 

1 Clo. Of all the days ithe year, I came to’t 
that day that our last king Hamlet overcame For- 
tinbras. 

Ham. How long is that since? + 


16 «To speak by the card,” is to speak precisely, by rule, or 
according to a prescribed course. It is a metaphor from the sea- 
man’s card or chart by which he guides his course. 

17 Picked is curious, over nice. See King John, Act i. se. 1, 
note 23. 


Bs A 2 
a ee 


sc. I. - PRINCE OF DENMARK. 303 


1 Clo. Cannot you tell that? every fool can tell 
that: it was the very day that young Hamlet was 
born;'* he that is mad, and sent into England. 

Ham. Ay, marry ; why was he sent into Eng- 
land? — 

1 Clo. Why, because he was mad: he shall re- 
cover his wits there; or, if he do not, ’tis no great 
matter there. 

Ham. Why ? 

1 Clo. *T will not be seen in him there; there the 
men are as mad as he. 

Ham. How came he mad? 

1 Clo. Very strangely, they say. 

Ham. How strangely ? 

1 Clo. ’Faith, e’en with losing his wits. 

Ham. Upon what ground 2 

1 Clo. Why, here in Denmark: I have been sex- 
ton here, man and boy, thirty years. 

Ham. How long will a man lie i’the earth ere he 
rot? 

1 Clo. ’Faith, if he be not rotten before he die, 
(as we have many pocky corses now-a-days,'® that 
will scarce hold the laying in,) he will last you some 
eight year, or nine year: a tanner will last you nine 
year. 

Ham. Why he more than another ? 

1 Clo. Why, sir, his hide is so tann’d with his 
trade, that he will keep out water a great while ; 
and your water is a sore decayer of your whoreson 
dead body. Here’s a skull now; this skull hath 
lain you i’the earth three-and-twenty years. 


18 By this scene it appears that Hamlet was then thirty years 
old, and knew Yorick well, who had been dead twenty-three years. 
And yet in the beginning of the play he is spoken of as one that 
designed to go back:to the university of Wittenburgh, 

19 Now-a-days is in the folio only. 


30 * 23 


“B54 i HAMLET, ACT V 


Ham. Whose was it? 

1 Clo. A whoreson mad fellow’s it was: whose 
do you think it was? 

Ham. Nay, I know not. 

1 Clo. A pestilence on him for a mad rogue! a’ 
pour’d a flagon of Rhenish on my head once. 
his same skull, sir, this same skull, sir, was Yor- 
ick’s skull, the king’s jester.” 

Ham. This? 

1 Clo. E’en that. 

Ham. Let me see. [Takes the Skull.] Alas, poor 
Yorick !—TI knew him, Horatio; a fellow of infimite 
jest, of most excellent fancy : he hath borne me on 
his back a thousand times; and now, how abhorred 
in my imagination it is! my gorge rises at it. Here 
hung those lips, that I have kiss’d I know not how 
oft. Where be your gibes now? your gambols.? 
your songs? your flashes of merriment, that were 
wont to set the table on a roar? Not one now, to 
mock your own grinning? quite chap-fallen? Now, 
get you to my lady’s chamber, and tell her, let her 
paint an inch thick, to this favour she must come ; 
make her laugh at that.— Pr’ythee, Horatio, tell 
me one thing. 

Hor. What’s that, my lord ? 

Ham. Dost thou think Alexander look’d o’this 
fashion i’the earth ? 

Hor. ¥E’en so. 

Ham. And smelt so? pah! 

. [Throws down the Skull. 
Hor. E’en so, my lord. 
Ham. To what base uses we may return, Horatio ! 


20 The repetition, “this same skull, sir,” is. found only in the 
folio. Likewise, the words, “ Let me see,” at the beginning of 
Hamlet’s second speech, after. H. 


sc. I. ’ PRINCE OF DENMARK. 35D. 


Why may not imagination trace the noble dust of 
Alexander, till he find it stopping a bung-hole ? 

Hor. ’Twere to consider too curiously, to con- 
sider so. 

Ham. No, ’faith, not a jot; but to follow him 
thither with modesty enough, and likelihood to lead 
it; as thus: Alexander died, Alexander was buried, 
Alexander returneth into dust; the dust is earth } 
of earth we make loam: and why of that loam, 
whereto he was converted, might they not stop a 
beer-barrel ? 

Imperial Cesar,” dead, and turn’d to clay, 

Might stop a hole to keep the wind away: 

O! that the earth, which kept the world in awe, 

Should patch a wall t’expel the winter’s flaw ! *? 
But soft! but soft! aside :— here comes the king, 


Enter Priests, &c., in Procession; the Corpse of 
OpHELiA, Laertes and Mourners following ; the 
King, the Queen, their Trains, §c. 


The queen, the courtiers. Whois that they follow, 
And with such maimed rites? This doth betoken, 
The corse they follow did with desperate hand 
Fordo its own life. "I'was of some estate.” 
Couch we awhile, and mark. 
[Retiring with Horatio. 

Laer. What ceremony else? 

Ham. That is Laertes, a very noble youth: mark. 

Laer. What ceremony else? 


£1 So the folio; the quartos, “ Imperious Casar.’’ The two 
words were sometimes used indifferently. See Troilus and Cres- 
sida, Act iv. sc. 5, note 17. H. 

22 A flaw is a violent gust of wind, See Coriolanus, Act v. 
sc. 3, note 6. 

23 To fordo is to undo, to destroy. Estutes was a common 
term for persons of rank. 


(356. > PeHAMLET, (ee ACT V. 


1 Priest. Her obsequies have been as far en- 
larg’d +: fan . . 
As we have warranty: her death was doubtful ; 
And, but that great command o’ersways the order, » 
She should in ground unsanetified have lodg’d 
Till 'the last trumpet; for charitable prayers, 
Shards,” flints, and pebbles should ‘be thrown on 
rs her 3 | eee i . : 
Yet here she is allow’d her virgin crants,”” 
Her maiden strewments, and the bringing home ~ 
Of bell and burial.”* 
Laer. Must there no more be done? 
l Priest: nine No more be done. 
We should profane the service of the dead, 
To sing a requiem,”” and such rest to her 
As to peace-parted souls. | 
Laer. Lay her i’the earth ; 
Aud from her fair and unpolluted flesh - 
May violets spring !—I tell thee, churlish priest, 
A ministering angel shall my sister be, 
When thou liest howling. | 
Ham. What ! the fair Ophelia ? 


24 Shards not only means fragments of pots and tiles, but rub- 
bish of any kind. Baret has “ shardes of stones, fragmentum 
lapidis ;” and « shardes, or pieces of stones broken and shattred, 
rubbel or rubbish of old houses.” Our version of the Bible has 
preserved to us pot-sherds ; and bricklayers, in Surrey and Sussex, 
use the compounds tile-sherds, slate-sherds. The word is not in 
the quartos.— For, in the preceding line, has the force of in- 
stead of. 

2 That is, garlands. Still used in most northern languages, 
but no other example of its use among us has yet offered itself. 
Jt is thought that Shakespeare may have met with the word in 
some old history of Hamlet, which furnished him with his fable. 
The folio changed this unusual word for rites, a less appropriate 
word. 

26 Of has here the force of with. 

27 A requiem is a mass sung for the rest of the soul. So called 
from the words, “ Requiem eternam dona eis, Domine.” 


' 
= a = a 


Sc. I. - PRINCE OF DENMARK. 307” 


Queen. Sweets to the sweet: farewell ! 
[Scattering Flowers. 
IT hop’d thou oul det have den my Hamlet’s wife ; 
I thought thy bride-bed to have deck’d, sweet maid, 
And not to have strew’d thy grave. 

Laer. , O! treble woe 
Fall ten times treble on that cursed head, 

Whose wicked deed thy most ingenious sense 

Depriv’d thee off !— Hold off the earth awhile, 

Till I have caught her once more in mine arms. 
[Leaps into the Grave. 

Now pile your dust upon the quick and dead ; 

Till of this flat a mountain you have made 

To o’ertop old Pelion, or the skyish head 

Of blue Olympus. 

Ham. | Advancing.| What is he, whose grief 
Bears such an emphasis? whose phrase of sorrow 
Conjures the wandering stars, and makes them stand 
Like wonder-wounded sheetery ? this is I, 

Hamlet the Dane. [Leaps into the Grave. 

Laer. | The devil take thy soul ! 

| Grappling with him. 
Alam. 'Thou pray’st not well. 
I pr’ythee, take thy fingers from my throat ; 
For, though I am not splenetive and rash, 
Yet have I in me something dangerous, 
Which let thy wisdom fear. Hold off thy hand. 

King. Pluck them asunder. ; 

Queen. . Hamlet, Hamlet! . 

All. Gentlemen, — 

Hor. Good my lord, be quiet. [The Attendants 

part them, and they come out of the Grave. 

Ham. Why, I will fight with him upon this theme, 
Until my eyelids will no longer wag. 

- Queen. Y my son ! what theme 2 


a Fe ee es ee ee 


+308 HAMLET, . ACT V 


Ham. \ lov’d Ophelia: forty thousand brothers 
Could not, with all their quantity of love, | 
Make up my sum. — What wilt thou do for her? 

King. O! he is mad, Laertes. 

Queen. For love of God, forbear him. 

Ham. ’Zounds, show me what thou’lt do: 

Woo't weep? woo’t fight? woo’t fast? woo't tear 
| thyself ? 

Woo't drink up Esill,”* eat a crocodile? 

T'll do’t.—Dost thou come here to whine? 

To outface me with leaping in her grave ? 

Be buried quick with her, and so will I: 

And, if thou prate of mountains, let them throw 
Millions of acres on us; till our ground, 
Singeing his pate against the burning zone, 
Make Ossa like a wart! Nay, an thou’lt mouth, 
I'l] rant as well as thou. 


28 So this name is spelt in the quartos, all but that of 1603, 
which has vessels. The folio spells it Eséle. What particular 
lake, river, firth, or gulf was meant by the Poet, is something un- 
certain. ‘The more common opinion is, that he had in mind the 
river Yesel which, of the larger branches of the Rhine, is the one 
nearest to Denmark. In the maps of our time, Isef is the name 
of a gulf almost surrounded by land, in the island of Zealand, 
not many miles west of Elsinore. Either of these names might 
naturally enough have been spelt and pronounced Esill or Isell by 
an Englishman in Shakespeare’s time. As for the notion held by 
some, that the Poet meant eysel or eisel, an old word for vinegar, 
it seems pretty thoroughly absurd, In strains of hyperbole, such 
figures of speech were often used by the old poets. Thus in King 
Richard II.: «The task he undertakes is numbering sands, and 
drinking oceans dry.” And in Chaucer’s Romaunt of the Rose : 
«“ He underfongeth a great paine, that undertaketh to drinke up 
Suine”’ Also, in Eastward Hoe: “Come, drink up Rhine, 
Thames, and Meander dry.” And in Greene’s Orlando Furioso: 7 
«Else would I set my mouth to Tygris streams, and drink up 
overflowing Eupbrates.” And in Marlowe’s Jew of Malta: 
« Sooner shalt thou drink the ocean dry than conquer Malta.” — 
Woo't is a contraction of wouldst thuu, said to be common in the 
northern counties of England. As it is spelt woo’t in the old 
copies, we know not why certain editors read wool’t. H. 


SC. IT PRINCE OF DENMARK. 309, 


Queen. This is mere madness ; 
And thus awhile the fit will work on him; 
Anon, as patient as the female dove, 
When that her golden couplets are disclosed, 
His silence will sit drooping.” 
Ham. Hear you, sir: 
What is the reason that you use me thus? 
I lov’d you ever: But it is no matter ; 
Let Hercules himself do what he may, 
The cat will mew, and dog will have his day. [ Ezit. 
King. 1 pray you, good Horatio, wait upon 
. him. — [Exit Horatio. 
[Zo Laertes.] Strengthen your patience in our 
last night’s speech ; 
We'll put the matter to the present push. — 
Good Gertrude, set some watch over your son. — 
This grave shall have a living monument: 
An hour of quiet shortly we shall see ; 
Till then, in patience our proceeding be. [Evzeunt. 


SCENE II. A Hall in the Castle. 


Enter HaMuLET and Horatio. 


Ham. So much for this, sir: now shall you see 
the other. — 
You do remember all the circumstance 7? 


29 The folio gives this speech to the King, in whose mouth it is 
about as proper as a diamond in a swine’s| snout.— The golden 


couplets are the two eggs of the dove; the nestlings, when first ° 


hatched, being covered with a yellow down; and in her patient 
tenderness the mother rarely leaves the nest, till her little-ones at- 
tain to some degree of dove-discretion. — Disclose was often used 
for hatch. Thus in the Boke of St. Albans, 1496: « For to speke 
of hawkes: Fyrst, they ben egges, and afterwarde they ben dis- 
closyd hawkys.” Again: “Comynly goshawkes ben disclosyd 
assoone as the choughs.” . H. 


oun, Cae ee OO ge _—! ne Se, gS eS) 5 
Pee ee ee Se ee yet NAS ee eg a 
3 eid, \ ae = 


369 HAMLET, ACT Vi? 


Hor. Remember it, my lord! 
Ham. Sir, in my heart there was a kind of fight- 
ing, } Gh 
That would not let me sleep: methought, I lay 
Worse than the mutines in the bilboes.’ Rashly, — 
And prais’d be rashness for it: let us know,’ 
Our indiscretion sometimes serves us well, . 
When our deep plots do pall;* and that should 
teach us, 

There’s a divinity that shapes our ends, 
Rough-hew them how we will, — 

Hor. That is most certain. 

Ham. —Up from my cabin, 
My sea-gown scarf’d about me,’ in the dark 
Grop’d I to find out them ; had my desire 5 
Finger’d their packet ; and, in fine, withdrew 
To mine own room again: making so bold, 
My fears forgetting manners, to unseal * 
Their grand commission ; where I found, Horatio, 
O royal knavery! an exact coimand, — 


1 The bilboes were bars of iron with fetters annexed to them, 
by which mutinous or disorderly sailors were anciently linked to- 
gether. The word is derived from Bilboa, in Spain, where the 
things were made, T'o understand the allusion, it should be known 
that as these fetters connected the legs of the offenders very close- 
ly together, their attempts to rest must be as fruitless as those of 
Hamlet, in whose mind there was a kind of fighting that would not 
let him sleep. The bilboes are still shown in the Tower, among | 
the other spoils of the Armada. — Mutines is for mutineers. See 
King Jobn, Act ii. se. 2, note 10. . 

2 To pall was to fade or fall away 3 to become, as it were, dead, 
_or without spirit: from the old French pasler, Tbus in Antony 
and Cleopatra : “ I'll never follow thy padl’d jortunes moge.” — The 
quartos have learn instead of teuch. 

3 « Eselavine,” says Cotgrave, “a sea-gowne, ascoarse, high- 
collar’d and short-sleeved gowne, reaching to the mid-leg, and 
used mosily by seamen and sailors.” 4 

4 Thus the folio; the quartos, wnfold. Unseal is Shown to be 

right by his resealing the packet.—In the second. line after, the 
quartos read “A royal knavery.” H. 


Es 


sc. Il. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 361 


Larded with many several sorts of reasons, — 
Importing Denmark’s health, and England’s too, 
With, ho! such bugs and goblins in my life,°— 
That on the supervise, no leisure bated, ° 
No, not to stay the grinding of the axe, 
My head should be struck off. 
Hor. Is’t possible ? 
Ham. Here’s the commission: read it at more 
leisure. 
But wilt thou hear me how I did proceed 27 
Hor. I beseech you. 
Ham. Being thus benetted round with villains, — 
Ere I could make a prologue to my brains, 
They bad begun the play, —I sat me down, 
Devis’d a new commission ; wrote it fair. 
I once did hold it, as our statists do,® 
A baseness to write fair, and labour’d much 
How to forget that learning; but, sir, now 
It did me yeoman’s service.” Wilt thou know 
The effect of what I wrote ? 
Hor. Ay, good my lord. 
Ham. An earnest conjuration from the king, — 


5 The Poet several times uses bugs for bughears. See 3 Henry 
VI., Act v. sc. 2, note 1. H. 

6 The supervise isthe looking over; no leisure bated means 
without any abatement or intermission of time. 

7 The quartos have now instead of mee. om, 

8 Statists are statesmen. Blackstone says, that “most of our 
great men of Shakespeare’s time wrote very bad hands ; their sec- 
retaries very neat ones.” This must be taken with some qualifi- 
cation ; for Elizabeth’s two most powerful ministers, Leicester and 
Burleigh, both wrote good hands. It is certain that there were’ 
some who did write most wretched scrawls, but probably not from 
affectation ; though it was accounted a mechanical and vulgar ac- 
complishment to write a fair hand. 

9 Sir Thomas Smyth says of the yeoman soldiers, that they’ 
were “the stable troop of footmen that affraide all France.” 

| i. 
VOL. X. 31 


362 HAMLET, ACT Y.) 


As England was his faithful tributary ; 
As love between them like the palm might flourish ; 
As peace should still her wheaten garland wear, 
And stand a comma ’tween their amities ;*° 
And many such like ases of great charge, — 
That, on the view and knowing of these contents, 
Without debatement further, more or less, 
He should the bearers put to sudden death, 
Not shriving-time allow’d. 
Hor. How was this seal’d ? 
Ham. Why, even in that was Heaven ordinant : 
I had my father’s signet in my purse, 
Which was the model of ‘that Danish seal ; 
Folded the writ up in form of the other ; 
Subscrib’d it; gave’t th’ impression ; plac’d it safely, 
The changeling never known. Now, the next day 
Was our sea-fight ; and what to this was sequent 
Thou know’st already. 
Hor. So Guildenstern and Rosencrantz go to’t. 
Ham. Why, man, they did make love to this em- 
ployment :" 
They are not near my conscience; their defeat 
Does by their own insinuation grow. 
"Tis dangerous, when the baser nature comes 
Between the pass and fell-incensed points 
Of mighty opposites. 
Hor. Why, what a king is this! 
Ham. Does it not, think thee, stand me now upon? 
He that hath kill’d my king, and whor’d my mother ; 
Popp’d in between th’ election and my hopes; 
Thrown out his angle for my proper life, 


10 This is oddly expressed, as Johnson observes ; but the mean- 
ing appears to be, “ Stand as a note of connexion between their 
amities, to prevent them from being brought to a period.” 

11 This line is met with only in the folio, H. 


SCral, |. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 363 


And with such cozenage ; is’t not perfect conscience, 
To quit him with this arm ? and is’t not to be damn‘d, 
To let this canker of our nature come 
In further evil ?** 

Hor. \t must be shortly known to him from Eng- 

land, 

What is the issue of the business there. 

Ham. It will be short: the interim is mine 5 
And a man’s life no more than to say, one. 
But I am very sorry, good Horatio, 
That to Laertes I forgot myself; 
For by the image of my cause I see 
The portraiture of his: Vl count his favours: '* 
But, sure, the bravery of his grief did put me 
Into a towering passion. 

For. Peace! who comes here? 


Enter Osrick. 


Osr. Your lordship is right welcome back to 
Denmark. . 

Ham. I humbly thank you, sir.— Dost know this 
water-fly ? ** 

Hor. No, my good lord. 

Ham. Thy state is the more gracious; for ’tis a 
vice to know him. He bath much land, and fertile: 
let a beast be lord of beasts, and his crib shall stand 
at the king’s mess: ’tisa chough; but, as I say, spa- 
cious in the possession of dirt. 


12 The last two lines of this speech, and what follows, down to 
the entrance of Osrick, is not in the quartos. H. 

13 Rowe changed this to “I'll court his favour ;’’ but there is 
no necessity for change. Hamlet means, “I'll make account of 
his favours,” that is, of bis good will ; the general meaning of fu- 
vours in the Poet’s time. om 

14 In Troilus and Cressida, Thersites says, “‘ How the poor 
world is pestered with such water-flies ; diminutives of nature.” 
The gnats and such like insects are not inapt emblems of such busy 
triflers as Osrick. 


~ ae 


Rene! 


Bg 


ee ern ee ee Te ey ee ee 
hoy 4 i wht 


364 . HAMLET, ACT Vi 


Osr. Sweet lord, if your lordship were at leisure, 
I should impart a thing to you from his majesty. 

Ham. 1 will receive it, sir, with all diligence of 
spirit. Your bonnet to its right use; ‘tis for the © 
head. 

Osr. I thank your lordship, ’tis very hot. 

Ham. No, believe me, ’tis le cold: the wind © 
is northerly. 

Osr. It is indifferent cold my lord, indeed. 

Ham. But yet, Sage it is very sultry and hot 
for my complexion.’® 

Osr. Exceedingly, my lord ; it is very sultry, — 
as "twere, —I cannot tell how. — But, my lord, his 
majesty bade me signify to you, that he has laid a 
great wager on your head. Sir, this is the matter, — 

Ham. I beseech you, remember — 

[Moving him to put on his Hat. 

Osr. Nay, good my lord; for mine ease, in good 
faith. Sir, here is, newly come to court, Laertes ; 
believe me, an absolute gentleman, full of most ex- 
cellent differences,’’ of very soft society, and great 
showing: Indeed, to speak feelingly of him, he is 
the card or calendar of gentry; for you shall find 
in him the continent of what part a gentleman 
would see. 

Ham. Sir, his definement suffers no perdition in 
you ; though, I know, to divide him inventorially, 
would dizzy the arithmetic of memory ; and it but 
yaw neither,’® in respect of his quick sail. But, in 


15 The quartos read or instead of for, thus leaving a break af- 
ter complexion. H. 

16 After this, the folio adds, “Sir, you are not ignorant of what 
excellence Laertes i is at his weapon,” and then omits what follows, 
down to the question, “ What’s his weapon ?” H. 

17 That is, distinguishing excellencies. : 

18 Thus the quarto of 1604; the others have raw instead of 


(SC. 1. . PRINCE OF DENMARK. 365 


the verity of extolment, I take him to be a soul of 
great article; and his infusion of such dearth and 
rareness, as, to make'true diction of him, his sem- 
blable is his mirror; and who else would trace him, 
his umbrage, nothing more. 
»  Osr. Your lordship.speaks most infallibly of him. 

Ham. The concernancy, sir? why do we wrap 
the gentleman in our more rawer breath ? 

Osr. Sir? | 

Hor. \s’t not possible to understand in another 
tongue?’ You will do’t, sir, really. 
- Ham. What imports the nomination of this gen- 
tleman ? 

Osr. Of Laertes ? 

Hor. His purse is empty already; all his golden 
words are spent. 
' Ham. Of him, sir. 

Osr. I know, you are not ignorant — 

Ham. I would, you did, sir ; yet, in faith, if you 
did, it would not much approve me. — Well, sir. 


yaw. The word is thus defined in Cole’s. Dictionary: “To yaw, 
(as of a ship,) hue illue vacillare, capite nutare.” It occurs as a 
substantive in Massinger’s Very Woman: “ O, the yaws that she 
will make! Look to your stern, dear mistress, and steer right.” 
Where Gifford notes, — “ A yaw is that unsteady motion which a 
ship makes in a great swell, when, in steering, she inclines to the 
right or left of her course.” Scott also has the word in The An- 
tiquary: “ Thus escorted, the Antiquary moved along full of his 
learning, like a lordly man-of-war, and every now and then yaw- 
ing to starboard and larboard to discharge a broadside upon his 
followers.”” — The old copies have yet instead of it ; which, says 
Mr. Dyce, “was often mistaken by our early printers for yet, per- 
haps because it was written yt.” His is for its, referring to mem- 
ory. See 2 Henry IV., Act i. sc. 2, note 16. H. 

19 Malone suspected this should be ‘in a mother tongue.” Ho- 
ratio means to imply, that what with Osrick’s euphuism, and what 
with Hamlet’s catching of Osrick’s style, they are not speaking in 
a tongue that can be understood ; and he hints that they try an- 
other tongue, that is, the common one. H. 


ol* 


366 HAMLET, ACT V. 


Osr. You are not ignorant of what excellence 
Laertes is — 

Ham. I dare not confess that, lest I should com- 
pare with him in excellence ; but to know a man 
well, were to know himself.” 

Qsr. I mean, sir, for his weapon; but in the 
imputation laid on him by them, in his meed*’ he’s 
unfellow’d. ° 

Ham. What’s his weapon ? 

Osr. Rapier and dagger. 

Ham. That’s two of his weapons: but, well. 

Osr. The king, sir, hath wager’d with him six 
Barbary horses ; against the which he has impon’d,”* 
as I take it, six French rapiers and poniards, with 
their assigns, as girdle, hangers, and so. Three of 
the carriages, in faith, are very dear to fancy, very 
responsive to the hilts, most delicate carriages, and 
of very liberal conceit. 

Ham. What call you the carriages ? 

Hor. I knew you must be edified by the margent 
ere you had done.” 

Osr. The carriages, sir, are the hangers. 

Ham. The phrase would be more german to the 
matter, if we could carry a cannon by our sides: I 
would it might be hangers till then. But, on: Six 
Barbary horses against six French swords, their 
assigns, and three liberal-conceited carriages ; that’s 


20 | dare not pretend to know him, lest I should pretend to an 
equality : no man can completely know another, but by knowing 
himself, which is the utmost of human wisdom. 

21 Meed is merit. See 3 Henry VI., Act ii. se. 1, note 6. 

22 The quartos have inpawn’d. Impon’d is probably meant as 
ar Osrickian form of the same word. To impawn is to put im 
pledge, that is, to wager. ; H. 

23 The gloss or commentary in old books was usually on the 
margin of the leaf. See Romeo and Juliet, Act i. se. 3, note 6. 


sc. Il. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 367 


the French bet against the Danish. Why is this 
impon’d, as you call it? 

Osr. The king, sir, hath laid, that in a dozen 
passes between yourself and him he shall not ex- 
ceed you three hits: he hath laid, on twelve for 
nine; and it would come to immediate trig) if your 
lordship would vouchsafe the answer. 

Ham. How, if I answer, no? 

Osr. I mean, my lord, the opposition of your per- 
son in trial. 

Ham. Sir, I will walk here in the hall: If it 
please his majesty, it is the breathing time of day 
with me:** let the foils be brought, the gentleman 
willing, and the king hold his purpose, I will win 
for him, if I can; if not, I will gain nothing but my 
shame, and the odd hits. 

Osr. Shall I deliver you so? 

Ham. To this effect, sir; after what flourish your 
nature will. 

Osr. I commend my duty to your lordship. 

[ Exit. 

Ham. Yours, yours. — He does well to commend 
it himself; there are no tongues else for’s turn. 

Hor. This lapwing runs away with the shell on 
his head.”° 

Ham. He did comply with his dug,”* before he 

24 «The breathing time” is the time for exercise. Thus in All’s 
Well that Ends Well, Act i. sc. 2: “ A nursery to our gentry, who 
are sick for breathing and exploit.” H. 

25 Meaning that Osrick is a raw, unfledged, foolish fellow. It 
was a common comparison for a forward fool. Thus in Meres’s 
Wits Treasury, 1598: « As the lapwing runneth away with the shell 
on her head, as soon as she is hatched.” 

26 Comply is used in the same sense here as in Act ii. se. 2. 
note 35. In Fulwel’s Art of Flatterie, 1579, the same idea occurs? 


« The very sucking babes hath a kind of adulation towards their 
nurses for the dug.” H. 


368 HAMLET, ACT V. 


suck’d it. Thus has he (and many more of the 
same bevy,” that, I know, the drossy age dotes on) 
only got the tune of the time, and outward habit of 
encounter 32° a kind of yesty collection, which car- 
ries them through and through the most fond and 
winnowed opinions ;*° and do but blow them to 
their trial, the bubbles are out. 


Enter a Lord.*° 


Lord. My lord, his majesty commended him to 
you by young Osrick, who brings back to him that 
you attend him in the hall: he sends to know, if 
your pleasure hold to play with Laertes, or that you 
will take longer time. 

Ham. 1 am constant to my purposes ; they follow 
the king’s pleasure: if his fitness speaks, mine 1s 
ready ; now, or whensoever, provided I be so able 
as now. 

Lord. The king and queen and all are coming 
down. 

Ham. Yn happy time. 

Lord. The queen desires you to use some gentle 
entertainment to Laertes, before you fall to play. 

Ham. She well instructs me. [Exit Lord. 


27 Thus the folio, misprinting, however, mine for many: the 

quartos have breed instead of bevy. H. 
*28 That is, exterior politeness of address, 

29 The quarto of 1604 has “most prophane and trennowed 
opinions ; in the other quartos trennowed is changed to trennowned : 
the folio reads asin the text. It may seem strange that this read- 
ing should have been thought unsatisfactory, but such is the case: 
Warburton changed fond to fann’d, and has been followed by di- 
vers editors. “Fond and winnowed opinions” are opinions con- 
ceitedly fine and winnowed clean of the dust of common sense 5 
such opinions as are affected by the amateur exquisites of all 
times. H. 

30 All that passes between Hamlet and this lord is omitted in 
the folio. 


Lo 2 


SC. IT. -PRINCE OF DENMARK. 369 


Hor. You will lose this wager, my lord.*’ 

Ham. I do not think so: since he went into 
France, I have been in continual practice ; I shall 
win at the odds. Thou would’st not think, how ill 
all’s here about my heart ; but it is no matter. 

Hor. Nay, good my lord, — 

Ham. It is but foolery ; but it is such a kind of 
gain-giving, as would, perhaps, trouble a woman.*’ 

Hor. If your mind dislike any thing, obey it: I 
will forestall their repair hither, and say you are 
not fit. 

Ham. Not a whit, we defy augury: there is a 
special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it 
be now, ’tis not to come; if it be not to come, it 
will be now ; if itebe not now, yet it will come: the 
readiness is all. Since no man of aught he leaves 
knows, what is’t to leave betimes?** Let be. 


31 The words, “this wager,” are wanting in the quartos. 
H. 
32 The folio has gain-giving ; the quartos, gam-giving and 
game-giving. Gain-giving i is misgiving or giving-against ; here 
meaning a dim prognostic or presentiment of evil. —« Shake- 
speare,” says Coleridge, “seems to mean al} Hamlet’s character 
to be brought together before his final disappearance from the 
scene 3 — his meditative excess in the grave-digging, his yielding 
to passion with Laertes, his love for Ophelia blazing out, his ten- 
dency to generalize on all occasions in the dialogue with Horatio, 
his fine gentlemanly manners with Osrick, and his and Shake- 
speare’s own fondness for presentiment.” H. 
33 This is the reading of the qWartos: the folio reads, “ Since 
no man he aught of what he leaves, what is’t to leave betimes ?” 
Johnson thus interprets the passage : “ Since no man knows aught 
of the state which he leaves ; since he cannot judge what other 
years may produce; why should we be afraid of leaving life be- 
times ?”’ Warburton’s exmgnation is very ingenious, but perhaps 
strains the Poet’s meaning ™* It is true that by death we lose all 
the goods of life; yet seeing this loss is no otherwise an evil than 
as we are sensible of it; and since death removes all sense of it; 
what matters it how soon we lose them ?” H. 


2% 


370 HAMLET, ACT V. 


Enter the King, the Queen, LarrtTes, Lords, Os- 
RICK, and Attendants, with Foils, &c. 


King. Come, Hamlet, come, and take this hand 
from me. [He puts the hand of LaeRTES 
into that of HaMLeT. 

Ham. Give me your pardon, sir: Pve done you 

wrong ; 
But pardon ’t, as you are a gentleman. 
This presence knows, 
And you must needs have heard, how I am punish’d 
With sore distraction. What I have done, 
That might your nature, honour, and exception 
Roughly awake, I here proclaim was madness. 
Was’t Hamlet wrong’d Laertes % Never, Hamlet: 
If Hamlet! from himself be ta’en away, 
And when he’s not himself does wrong Laertes, 
Then Hamlet does it not; Hamlet denies it. 
Who does it then? His madness. If’t be so, 
Hamlet is of the faction that is wrong’d ; 
His madness is poor Hamlet’s enemy. 
Sir, in his audience,** 
Let my disclaiming from a purpos’d evil 
Free me so far in your most generous thoughts, 
That I have shot my arrow o’er the house, 
And hurt my brother. 

Laer. I am satisfied in nature, 
Whose motive, in this case, should stir me most 
To my revenge: but in my terms of dona 
I stand aloof, and will no reconcilement, 

Till by some elder masters, of known honour, 
I have a voice and precedent#f peace, 
To keep my name ungor’d. But till that time 


34 This hemstitch is in the folio only. In what follows, the folie 
misprints mother for brother, and ungorg’d for ungor’d. H. 


Ra 


SC. II. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 371 


I do receive your offer’d love like love, 
And will not wrong it. 
Ham. I embrace it freely ; 
And will this brother’s wager frankly play. — 
Give us the foils ; come on.*° 
Laer. Come; one for me. 
Ham. Pll be your foil, Laertes: in mine igno- 
rance 
Your skill shall, like a star i’the darkest night, 
Stick fiery off indeed. 
Laer. You mock me, sir. 
Ham. No, by this hand. 
King. Give them the foils, young Osrick. — Cous- 
in Hamlet, 
You know the wager ? 
Ham. Very well, my lord: 
Your grace hath laid the odds o’the weaker side.* 
King. I do not fear it: I have seen you both ; 
But since he’s better’d, we have therefore odds. 
Laer. This is too heavy ; let me see another. 
Ham. This likes me well. These foils have alla 
length ? [They prepare to play. 
Osr. Ay, my good lord. 
King. Set me the stoops of wine upon that 
table. — 
If Hamlet give the first or second hit, 
Or quit in answer of the third exchange, 
Let all the battlements their ordnance fire: 
The king shall drink to Hamlet’s better breath ; 
And in the cup an union shall he throw,*” 


35 The words, “come on,” are not in the quartos, H. 


36 The King had wagered six Barbary horses to a few rapiers, 
poniards, &c.; that is, about ¢wenty to one. These are the odds 
here meant. The odds the King means in the next speech were 
twelve to nine in favour of Hamlet, by Laertes giving him three. 

37 The folio has union; the quartos, unice and onix. Union 


4,” 


ne ae TS, 


372 HAMLET, ACT VY. 


Richer than that which four successive kings 

In Denmark’s crown have worn. Give me the cups; 

And let the kettle to the trumpet speak, 

The trumpet to the cannoneer without, 

The cannons to the heavens, the heaven to earth, 

«Now the king drinks to Hamlet.”— Come, be- 
gin 5 — 

And you, the judges, bear a wary eye. 


Ham. Come on, sir. . 

. Laer. Come, my lord. [ They play. 
Ham. One. | 

Laer. No. 


Ham. Judgment. 
Osr. A hit, a very palpable hit. 
Laer. Well, — again. 
King. Stay; give me drink: Hamlet, this pearl 
is thine ; 
Here’s to thy health. —Give him the cup. 

[ Trumpets sound; and Cannons shot off within. 
Ham. Vl play this bout first; set it by awhile. 
Come. —[ They play.] Another hit; what say you? 

Laer. A touch, a touch; I do confess.** 
King. Our son shall win. 
Queen. He’s fat, and scant of breath.** — 


is a name for Jarge and precious pearls. Afterwards, on finding 
out what the King’s wnion was, Hamlet tauntingly asks, “ Is thy 
union here 1”? According to Rondeletus, pearls were thought to 
have an exhilarating quality. To swallow them in a draught, was 
esteemed a high strain of magnificence. Thus in If You know 
not Me You know Nobody : 


«Here sixteen thousand pound at one clap goes, 
Instead of sugar: Gresham drinks this pearl 
Unto the queen his mistress.” H. 


38 The words, “A touch, a touch,” are not in the quartos. 
H. - 

39 This speaking of Hamlet as “fat and scant of breath” is ) 
greatly at odds with the idea we are apt to form of him; though . 


SC. IT. PRINCE OF DENMARK. Site 


Here, Hamlet, take my napkin, rub thy brows: 
The queen carouses to thy fortune, Hamlet. 
Ham. Good madam, — 
King. Gertrude, do not drink. 
Queen. Iwill, my lord: I pray you, pardon me. 
King. [Aside.] It is the poison’d cup! it is too 
late. 
Ham. I dare not drink yet, madam ; by and by. 
Queen. Come, let me wipe thy face. 
Laer. My lord, Vil hit him now. 


King. I do not think it. 

Laer. [| Aside.| And yet ’t is almost ’gainst my 
conscience. 

Ham. Come, for the third, Laertes. You but 
dally : 


I pray you, pass with your best violence: 
J am,afeard you make a wanton of me.” 
Laer. Say you so? come on. [ They play. 
Osr. Nothing, neither way. 
Laer. Have at you now. 
[LaeRTES wounds HaMLeT; then, in scuf- 
fling, they change Rapiers, and HaMLetT 
wounds LAERTES. 


there is no good reason why the being somewhat fat should in any 
point take off from his excellences as a man or a prince. It is 
thought by some, however, and seems indeed likely enough to have 
been true, that the expression was used with special reference to 
Burbage, the original actor of Hamlet’s part. Burbage died in 
1619; and in a manuscript elegy upon his death, sold, not many 
years since, among Heber’s books, are the following lines, which 
both ascertain his original performance of the part, and also ren- 
der it probable that the words in question had reference to him: 


«No more young Hamlet, though but scant of breath, 
Shall cry ‘ Revenge!’ for his dear father’s death.” —_H. 


40 That is, that you trifle with me as if I were a child, or om 
not worth “ your best violence.’’ — The quartos have sure insteac 
of afeard. H. 

VOL. X. 82 


374 HAMLET, ACT V, 


King. Part them! they are incens’d. 
Ham. Nay, come again. [The Queen falls. 
Osr. Look to the queen there, ho! 
Hor. They bleed on both sides. — How is’t, my 
lord? 
Osr. How is’t, Laertes? 
Laer. Why, as a woodcock to mine own springe, 
Osrick 3 
I am justly kill’d with mine own treachery. 
Ham. How does the queen? 
King. She swoons to see them bleed. 
Queen. No, no, the drink, the drink !— O, my 
dear Hamlet! | 
The drink, the drink !—TI am poison’d'! [ Dies. 
Ham. O villainy !—Ho! let the door be lock’d: 
Treachery ! seek it out. [Larrtes falls. 
Laer. It is here, Hamlet. Hamlet, thou art slain 5 
No medicine in the world can do thee’ good: 
In thee there is not half an hour of life ;“ 
The treacherous instrument is in thy hand, 
Unbated, and envenom’d.** The foul practice 
Hath turn’d itself on me: lo! here I lie, 
Never to rise again. Thy mother’s poison’d: 
I can no more; the king, the king’s to blame. 
Ham. The point 
Envenom’d too !— Then, venom, to thy work! 
[Stabs the King. 
All. Treason ! ‘treason ! 
King. O! yet defend me, friends; I am but hurt. 
Ham. Here, thou incestuous, murderous, damned 


Dane, 
Drink off this potion: —is thy union here ? 
% ollow my mother. [ King dies 
41 So the folio; the quartos, “half an hour’s life.” H. 


42 Unbated is unblunted, as in Act iv. sc. 7, note 18. H. 


oo Ps) 


sc. II. _ PRINCE OF DENMARK. 375 


Laer. He is justly serv’d; 
It is a poison temper’d by himself. — 
Exchange forgiveness with me, noble Hamlet : 
Mine and my father’s death come not upon thee, 
Nor thine on me! [ Dies. 

Ham. Heaven make thee free of it! I follow thee. 
I am dead, Horatio. — Wretched queen, adieu ! — 
You that look pale and tremble at this chance, 
That are but mutes or audience to this act, 

Had I but time, (as this fell sergeant, death, 
Is strict in his arrest,) O! I could tell you — 
But let it be. — Horatio, I am dead ; 

Thou liv’st : report me and my cause aright 
To the unsatisfied. 

For. Never believe it : 

I am more an antique Roman than a Dane. 
Here’s yet some liquor left. 

Ham. As thou ’rt a man, 
Give me the cup: let go; by Heaven, I’ll have’t.— 
O God ! — Horatio, what a wounded name, 
Things standing thus unknown, shall live behind me ! 
If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart, 

Absent thee from felicity awhile, 

And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain, 

To tell my story. — 
[March afar off, and Shot within. 
What warlike noise is this ? 

Osr. Young Fortinbras, with conquest come from 
Poland, 

To the ambassadors of England gives 

This warlike volley. 

Ham. O, I die, Horatio ! 

The potent poison quite o’ercrows my spirit: ** 


43 To overcrow is to overcome, to subdue. “These noblemen 


376 HAMLET, ACT V- 


I cannot live to hear the news from England ; 

But I do prophesy th’ election lights 

On Fortinbras: he has my dying voice 5 

So tell him, with the occurrents, more and less, 

Which have solicited ‘‘— The rest is silence. [Dies. 
Hor. Now cracks a noble heart !— Good night, 

sweet prince 3 
And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest ! — 
Why does the drum comé hither. — [March within. 


Enter Fortixpras, the English Ambassadors, and 


Others. 
Fort. Where is this sight ? 
Hor. What is it ye would see? 


If aught of woe or wonder, cease your search. 
Fort. This quarry cries on havoc !** —O, proud 
death ! 
What feast is toward in thine eternal cell, 
That thou so many princes, at a shot, 
So bloodily hast struck ? 
1 Amb. The sight is dismal, 
And our affairs from England come too late: 
The ears are senseless that should give us hearing, 
To tell him his commandment is fulfill’d 5 
That Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead. 
Where should we have our thanks? 


Jaboured with tooth and naile to overcrow, and consequently to 
overthrow one another.” — Holinshed’s History of Ireland. 

44 Occurrents was much used in the Poet’s time for events or 
occurrences. — Solicited is prompted or excited ; as “this super- 


natural soliciting” in Macbeth. —< More and less” is greater 
and smaller ; a common usage with the old writers. — The folio 
adds, after silence, “O, 0, 0, 0.” H. 


43 To cry on was to exclaim against. I suppose, when unfair 
sportsmen destroyed more game than was reasonable, the censure 
was to call it havoc. — Jounson.— Quarry was the term used 
for a heap of slaughtered game. See Macbeth, Act i. sc. 2, 
note 3. 


SC. IT. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 377 


Hor. Not from his mouth, 
Had it th’ ability of life to thank you: 
He never gave commandment for their death. 
But since, so jump upon this bloody question,*® 
You from the Polack wars, and you from England, 
Are here arriv’d, give order that these bodies 
High on a stage be placed to the view ; 
And let me speak to th’ yet unknowing world, 
How these things came about: so shall you hear 
Of carnal, bloody, and unnatural acts ; 
Of accidental judgments, casual slaughters ; 
Of deaths put on by cunning, and fore’d cause ; *” 
And, in this upshot, purposes mistook 
Fall’n on the inventors’ heads: all this can I 
Truly deliver. — 
Fort. Let us haste to hear it, 
And call the noblest to the audience. 
For me, with sorrow I embrace my fortune : 
I have some rights of memory in this kingdom,* 
Which now to claim my vantage doth invite me. 
Hor. Of that I shall have also cause to speak, 
And from his mouth whose voice will draw on more: 
But let this same be presently perform’d, 
Even while men’s minds are wild; lest more mis- 
chance, 
On plots and errors, happen. 
Fort. Let four captains 
Bear Hamlet, like a soldier, to the stage ; 


46 Tt has been already observed that jump and just, or exactly, 
are synonymous. See Acti. sc. 1, note 10. 

47 The quartos have “and for no cause.’ The phrase put on 
here means instigated or set on foot, Cunning refers, apparent- 
ly, to Hamlet’s action touching “the packet,” and forc’d cause, 
to the “compelling occasion,’ which moved him to that piece of 
practice. H. 

48 That is, some rights which are remembered in this kingdom, 


a2 * 


For he was likely, had he been put on, 
To have prov’d most royally : and, for his passage, 
The soldier’s music, and the rights of war, ee ae 
Speak loudly for him. — hi ec a 
Take up the bodies. — Such a sight as this ae 
Becomes the field, but here shows much amiss. — Plat 3 
Go, bid the soldiers shoot. _ [A dead March, a 
[Exzeunt, marching ; after which, a Peal fs. e 
Ordnance is shot off. 


INTRODUCTION 


TO 


THE TRAGEDY OF OTHELLO. 


It Moro pr VeEneEz1a is the title of one of the novels in Gi- 
raldi Cinthio’s Hecatommithi. The material for THE TRAGEDY 
OF OTHELLO, THE Moor oF VENICE, was partly derived from 
this source. Whether the story was accessible to Shakespeare 
in Englisn, we have no certain knowledge. No translation of so 
_ early%a date has been seen or heard of in modern times 3 and we 
have already in several cases. found reason to think he knew 
enough of Italian to take the matter directly from the original. 
We proceed, as usual, to give such an abstract of the tale as may 
fully discover the nature and extent of the Poet’s obligations : 

There lived in Venice a valiant Moor who was held in high es- 
teem for his military genius and services. Desdemona, a lady of 
great virtue and beauty, won by his noble qualities, fell in love with 
him. He also became equally enamoured of her, and, notwith- 
standing the opposition of her friends, married her. They were 
altogether happy in each other until the Moor was chosen to the 
military command of Cyprus. Though much pleased with this 
honour, he was troubled to think that he must either part from his 
wife or else expose her to the dangers of the voyage. She, see- 
ing him troubled and not knowing the cause, asked him one day 
how he could be so melancholy afier being thus honoured by the 
Senate ; and, on being told the reason, begged him to dismiss 
@such idle thoughts, as she was resolved to follow him wherever he 
should go, and, if there were any dangers in the way, to share 
them with him. So, the necessary preparations being made, he 
soon afterwards embarked with his wife, and sailed for Cyprus. 
In his company he had an ensign, of a fine-looking person, but 
exceedingly depraved in heart, a boaster and a coward, who by his 
crafliness and pretension had imposed on the Moor’s simplicity, 
and gained his friendship. This rascal also took his wife along, 
a handsome and discreet woman, who, being an Italian, was much 
cherished by Desdemona. In the same company was also a 


382 OTHELLO, THE MOOR OF VENICE. 


lieutenant to whom the Moor was much attached, and often had 
him to dine with him and his wife ; Desdemona showing him great 
attention and civility for her husband’s sake. 

The ensign, falling passionately in love with Desdemona, and 
not daring to avow it lest the Moor should kill him, sought by 
private means to make her aware of his passion. But when he 
saw that all his efforts came to nothing, and that she was too much 
wrapped up in her husband to think of him or any one else, he at 
last took it into his head that she was in love with the lieutenant, 
and determined to work the ruin of them both by accusing them 
to the Moor of adultery. But he saw that he would have to be 
very artful in his treachery, else the Moor would not believe him, 
so great was his affection for his wife, and his friendship for the 
lieutenant. He therefore watched for an opportunity of putting 
his design into act ; and it was not long before he found one, For, 
the lieutenant having drawn his sword and wounded a soldier upon 
guard, the Moor cashiered him. Desdemona tried very hard to 
get him pardoned, and received again to favour. When the Moor 
told his ensign how earnest she was in this cause, the villain saw 
it was the proper time for opening bis scheme: so, he suggested 
that she might be fond of the lieutenant’s company ; and, the Moor 
asking him why, he replied, — “Nay, I do not choose to meddle 
between man and wife ; but watch her properly, and you will then 
understand me.”? The Moor could get no further explanation from 
him, and, being stung to the quick by his words, kept brooding 
upon them, and trying to make out their meaning ; and when his 
wife, some time after, again begged him to forgive the lieutenant, 
and not to let one slight fault cancel a friendship of so many years, ° 
he at last grew angry, and wondered why she should trouble herself 
so much about the fellow, as he was no relation of hers. She replied 
with much sweetness, that her only motive in speaking was the 
pain she felt in seeing ber husband deprived of so good a friend. 

Upon this solicitation, he began to suspect that the ensign’s 
words meant that she was in love with the lieutenant. So, being 
full of melancholy thoughts, he went to the ensign, and tried to 
make him speak more intelligibly ; who, feigning great reluctance 
to say more, and making as though he yielded to his pressing en- 
treaties, at last replied, —“ You must know, then, that Desdemona 
is grieved for the lieutenant only because, when he comes to your 
house, she consoles herself with him for the disgust she now has at 
your blackness.” At this, the Moor was more deeply stung than 
ever ; but, wishing to be informed further, he put on a threatening 
look, and said, — <I know not what keeps me from cutting out 
that insolent tongue of yours, which has thus attacked the honour 
of my wife” The ensign replied that he expected no other re- 
ward for his friendship, but still protested that he had spoken the 
truth “TIf,’ said he, “her feigned affection has blinded you to 
such a degree that you cannot see what is so very visible, that 


INTRODUCTION. 383 


does not lessen the truth of my assertion. The lieutenant him- 
self, being one of those who are not content unless some others 


are made privy to their secret enjoyments, told me so; and [ 


would have given him his death at the time, but that I feared your 
displeasure : but, since you thus reward my friendship, I am sorry 
I did not hold my tongue.” ‘The Moor answered in great pas- 
sion, —“If you do not make me see with my own eyes the truth 
of what you tell me, be assured that I will make you wish you bad 
been born dumb.” — “ That would have been easy enough,” said 
the ensign, “ when the lieutenant came to your house; but now 
that you have driven him away, it will be hard to prove it. But 
I do not despair of causing you to see that which you will not be- 
lieve on my word.” 

The Moor then went home with a barbed arrow in his side, im 
patient for the time when he was to see what would render him 
forever miserable. Meanwhile, the known purity of Desdemona 
made the ensign very uneasy lest he should not be able to con- 
vince the Moor of what he had said. He therefore went to hatch- 
ing new devices of malice. Now, Desdemona often went to his 
house, and spent part of the day with his wife. Having observed 
that she brought with her a handkerchief which the Moor had given 
her, and which, being delicately worked®in the Moorish style, was 
much prized by them both, be devised to steal it. He had a little 
girl of three years old, who was much caressed by Desdemona. 
So, one day, when she was at his house, he put the child into her 
arms, and while she was pressing the little girl to her bosom, he 
stole away the handkerchief so dexterously that she did not per- 
ceive it. This put him in high spirits. And the lady, being oc- 
cupied with other things, did not think of the handkerchief till 
some days after, when, not being able to find it, she began to fear 
Jest the Moor should ask for it, as he often did. The ensign, 
watching his opportunity, went to the lieutenant, and left the hand- 
kerchief on his bolster. When the lieutenant found it, be could 
not imagine how it came there ; but, knowing it to be Desdemo- 
na’s, he resolved to carry it to her: so, waiting till the Moor was 
gone out, he went to the back door, and knocked. ‘The Moor, 
having that instant returned, went to the window, and asked who 
was there ; whereupon the lieutenant, hearing his voice, ran away 
without answering. The Moor then went tothe door, and, finding 
no one there, returned full of suspicion, and asked his wife if she 
knew who it was that had knocked. She answered with truth that 
she did not; but he, thinking it was the lieutenant, went to the en- 
sign, told him what had happened, and engaged him to ascertain 
what he could on the subject. 

The ensign, being much delighted ‘at this incident, contrived one 
day to have an interview with the lieutenant in a place where the 
Moor could see them. In the course of their talk, which was on 
a different subject, he laughed much, and by his motions expressed 


O54 OTHELLO, THE MOOR OF VENICE. 


great surprise. As soon as they had parted, the Moor went to the 
ensign, to learn what had passed between them 5 and he, after 
much urging, declared that the lieutenant withheld nothing from 
him, bat rather boasted of his frequent wickedness with Desde- 
mona, and how, the last time he was with her, she made him a 
present of the handkerchief her husband had given her. The 
Moor thanked him, and thought that if his wife no longer had the 
handkerchief, this would be a procf that the ensign had told lim 
the truth. So, one day after dinner he asked her for it; and she, 
being much disconcerted at the question, and blashing deeply, all 
which was carefully observed by the Mooryran to her wardrobe, 
as if to look for it; but, as she could not find it, and wondered 
what had become of it, he told her to look for it some other time ; 
then Jeft her, and began to reflect how he might put her and the 
lieutenant to death so as not to be held responsible for the murder. 

The lieutenant had in his house a woman who, struck with the 
beauty of the handkerchief, determined to copy it before it should 
be returned. While she was at the work, sitting by a window 
where any one passing in the street might see her, the ensign 
pointed it out.to the Moor, who was then fully persuaded of his 
wife’s guilt. The ensign then engaged to kill both her and the 
lieutenant. So, one dark night, as the lieutenant was coming out 
of a house where he usually spent his evenings, the ensign stealth- 
ily gave him a cut in the leg with his sword, and brought him to 
the ground, and then rushed upon him to finish the work. But 
the lieutenant, who was very brave and skilful, having drawn. his 
sword, raised himself for defence, and cried out murder as loud 
as he could. As the alarm presently drew some people to the 
spot, the ensign fled away, but quickly returned, pretended that he 
too was brought thither by the noise, and condoled with the lieu- 
tenant as much as if be had been his brother. The next morning, 
Desdemona, hearing what had happened, expressed much concern 
for the lieutenant, and this greatly strengthened the Moor’s con- 
viction of her guilt. He then arranged with the ensign for put- 
ting her to death in such a manner as to avoid suspicion. As the 
Moor’s house was very old, and the ceiling broken in divers 
places, the plan agreed upon at the villain’s suggestion was, that 
she should be beaten to death with a stocking full of sand, as this 
would leave no marks upon her; and that when this was done 
they should pull down the ceiling over her head, and then give out 
that she was killed by a beam falling upon her. To carry this 
purpose into effect, the Moor one night had the ensign hidden in 
a closet opening into his chamber. At the proper time, the en- 
sign made a noise, and when Desdemona rose and went to see 
what it was, he rushed forth and killed ber in the manner pro- 
posed. ‘They then placed her on the bed, and when all was done 
according to the arrangement, the Moor gave an alarm that his 
house was falling. ‘The neighbours running thither found the lady 


— 


_— 


o*4pinay ewer 32 re wick hae ey i gtins ss oe » 1X Teak 


INTRODUCTION. 385 


dead under the beams. The next day, she was buried, the whole 
istand mourning for her. > 

The Moor, not long after, became distracted with grief and re- 
morse. Unable to bear the sight of the ensign, he would have 
put bim openly to death, but that he feared the justice of the Ve- 
netians ; so he drove him from his company and degraded him, 
whereupon. the villain went to studying how to be revenged on the 
Moor. To this end, he disclosed the whole matter to the lieuten- 
ant, who accused the Moor before the Senate, and called the en- 
sign to witness the truth of bis charges. The Moor was impris- 
oned, banished, and afterwards killed by his wife’s relations. The 
ensign, returning to Venice, and continuing his old practices, was 
taken up, put to the torture, and racked so violently that he soon 
died. 

Such are the materials out of which was constructed this great- 
est of domestic dramas. A comparison of Cinthio’s tale with the 
tragedy built upon it will show the measure of the Poet's judg- 
ment better, perhaps, than could be done by an entirely original 
performance. For, wherever he departs from the story, itis fora 
great and manifest gain of truth and nature; so that he appears 
equally judicious in what he borrowed and in what he created, 
while his resources of invention seem boundless, save as they are 
self-restrained by the reason and logje of art. The tale has noth- 
ing anywise answering to the part of Roderigo, who in the drama 
is a vastly significant and_ effective occasion, since upon him the 
most profound and subtle traits of Iago are made to transpire, 
and that in such a way as to lift the characters of Othello and 
Desdemona into a much bigher region, and invest them with a far 
deeper and more pathetic interest and meaning. And even in the 
other parts, the Poet can scarce be said to have taken any thing 
more than a few incidents and the outline of the plot; tbe char- 
acter, the passion, the pathos, the poetry, being entirely bis own, 

Until a recent date, the tragedy of Othello was commonly sup- 
posed to have been among the last of Shakespeare’s writing, 
Chalmers assigned it-to 1614, Drake, to 1612; Malone at first set 
it down to 1611, afterwards to 1604. Mr. Collier bas produced 
an extract from “ The Egerton Papers,” showing that on the 6th 
of August, 1602, the sum of ten pounds was paid “to Burbage’s 
Players for Othello.” At that time, Queen Elizabeth was at 
Harefield on a visit to Sir Thomas Egerion, then Lord Keeper 
of the Great Seal, afterwards Lord Ellesmere ; aud it appears 
that he had the tragedy performed at his residence for her delec- 
tation. The company that acted ou this occasion were then 
known as the Lord Chamberlain’s Servants, and in the Egerton 
Papers were spoken of as Burbage’s Players, probably because 
Richard Burbage was the leading actor among them, And an 
elegy on the death of Burbage, lately discovered among Mr. He- 
ber’s manuscripts, ascertains him to have been the original pers 


VOL. X. 33 25 


386 OTHELLO, THE MOOR OF VENICE. 


former of Othello’s part. After mentioning various characters in 
which this actor had been’ distinguished, the writer proceeds thus: 


«“ But let me not forget one chiefest part 
Wherein, beyond the rest, he mov’d the heart 5 
The grieved Moor, made jealous by a slave, 
Who sent his wife to fill a timeless grave, 
Then slew himself upon the bloody bed.” 


When selected for performance at Harefield, Othello was doubt- 
less in the first blush and freshness of its popularity, having prob- 
ably had a run at the Globe in the spring of that year, and thus 
recommended itself to the audience of the Queen. Whether the 
play were then in its finished state, we have no means of ascer- 
taining. Its workmanship certainly bespeaks the Poet’s highest 
maturity of power and art; which has naturally suggested, that 
when first brought upon the stage it may have been as different 
from what it is now, as the original Hamlet was from the enlarged 
copy. Such is the reasonable conjecture of Mr. Verplanck, — a 
conjecture not a little approved by the fact of the Poet’s baving 
rewritten so many of his dramas after his mind had outgrown 
their original form. The style, however, of the play is through- 
out so even and sustained, so perfect is ihe coherence and con- 
gruity of part with part, andaits whole course so free from redun- 
dancy and impertinence, that, unless some further external evi- 
dence should come to light, the question will have to rest in mere 
conjecture. 

The drama was not printed during the author’s life. On the 
6th of October, 1621, it was entered at the Stationers’ by Thomas 
Walkley, “under the hands of Sir George Buck and of the 
Wardens.” Soon after waseissued a quarto pamphlet of forty- 
eight leaves, the title-page reading thus : “The Tragedy of Othel- 
Jo, the Moor of Venice. As it hath been divers times acted at the 
Globe and at the Blackfriars, by his Majesty’s Servants. Written 
by William Shakespeare. London: Printed by N. O. for Thomas 
Walkley, and are to be sold at his shop, at the Eagle and Child, 
in Britain’s Bourse. 1622.” This edition was set forth with a 
short preface by the publisher, which will be found at the end of 
this Introduction. 

In the folio of 1623, Othello stands the tenth in the division of 
Tragedies, has the acts and scenes regularly marked, and at the 
end a list of the persons, headed, « The Names of the Actors.” 
Tago is here called “a villain,” and Roderigo “a gull’d gentle- 
man.’ In the folio, the play has a number of passages, some of 
them highly important, amounting in all to upwards of 160 lines, 
which are not in the preceding quarto. On the other hand, the 
folio omits a few lines that are found in the earlier issue. These 
variations will be specified in our notes, and therefore need not be 
pointed out here. 


] 


INTRODUCTION. 387 


The play was again set forth in quarto form in 1630, with a 
title-page reading substantially the same as that of 1622, save as 
regards the name and address of the publisher, 

Neither one of these copies was merely a repetition of another : 
on the contrary, all three of them, as the several variations marked 
in our notes will show, were printed from different and probably 
independent manuscripts. All, therefore, are used as authorities 
in this edition; the folio being taken as the standard, and both the 
quartos drawn upon for completing and correcting the text. There 
are, besides, divers various readings in the several copies, which 
appear to have equal authority, and between which it is not al- 
ways easy tochoose. Wherever the folio text is in any important 
respect departed from, such departures are duly noted in our mar- 
gin; so that the reader can use his own judgment in the matter. 
It will be seen that the quarto of 1630 is of great value in cor- 
recting or confirming the text of the other copies. 

The island of Cyprus became subject to the republic of Venice, 
and was first garrisoned with Venetian troops, in 1471. After this 
time, the only attempt ever made upon that island by the Torks, 
was under Selim the Second, in 1570. It was then invaded by a 
powerful force, and conquered in 15713; since which time it has 
continued a part of the Turkish empire. We learn from the play, 
that there was a junction of the Turkish fleet at Rhodes, in order 
for the invasion of Cyprus; that it first sailed towards Cyprus, 
then went to Rhodes, there met another squadron, and then re- 
sumed its course to Cyprus. These are historical facts, and took 
place when Mustapha, Selim’s general, attacked Cyprus, in May, 
1570 ; which is therefore the true period of the action. 

In respect of general merit, Othello unquestionably stands iu 
the same rank with the Poet’s three other great tragedies, Mac- 
beth, Lear, and Hamlet. As to the particular place it is entitled 
to hold among the four, the best judges, as we might expect, are 
not agreed. In the elements and impressions of moral terror, it 
is certainly inferior to Macbeth; in breadth and variety of char- 
acterisation, to Lear ; in compass and reach of thought to Ham- 
Jet : but it has one advantage over all the others, in that the pes- 
sion, the action, the interest, all lie strictly within the sphere f 
domestic life ; for which cause the play has a more close and irii- 
mate hold on the common sympathies of mankind. On the whole, 
perhaps it may be safely affirmed of these four tragedies, that the 
most competent readers will always like that best which they read 
Jast. ‘We have already, in our Introduction to King Lear, ex- 
pressed a slight general preference for that drama; but we find it 
not easy to keep up such preference while either of the others is 
dwelling more freshly in the mind. 

Dr. Jobnson winds up his excellent remarks on this tragedy as 
follows : “ Had the scene opened in Cyprus, and the preceding 
incideuts been occasionally related, there had been little wanting 


308 OTHELLO, THE MOOR OF VENICE. 


to a drama of the most exact and scrupulous regularity.’ This 
means; no doubt, that the play would have been improved by sach 
a change. ‘The whole of Act i. would thus have been spared, and 
we should have, instead, various narrations in the form of solilo- 
quy, but addressed to the audience. Here, then, would be two 
improprieties, — the turning of the actor into an orator by putting 
bim directly in communication with the audience, and the making 
him soliloquize matter inconsistent with the nature of the soliloquy. 

But, to say nothing of the irregularity thus involved, all the bet- 
ter meaning of Act i. would needs be lost in narration. For the 
very reason of the dramatic form is, that action conveys some- 
thing which cannot be done up in propositions. So that, if narra- 
tive could here supply the place of the scenes in question, it does 
not appear why there should be any such drama at all. We will 
go further: This first Act is the very one which could least be 
spared, as being in effect fundamental to the others, and therefore 
necessary to the right understanding of them. 

One great error of criticism has been, the looking for too much 
simplicity of purpose in works of art. We are told, for instance, 
that the end of the drama is, to represent actions; and that, to 
keep the work.clear of redundances, the action must be one, with 
a beginning, a middle, and an end; as if all the details, whether 
of persons or events, were merely for the sake of the catastrophe. 
Thus it is presumed, that any one thing, to be properly under- 
stood, should be detached from all others. Such is not the method 
of nature: to accomplish one aim, she carries many aims along 
together. And so the proper merit of a work of art, which is its 
truth to nature, lies in the harmony of divers co-ordinate and con- 
current purposes, making it, not like a flat abstraction, but like a 
round, plump fact. Unity of effect is indeed essential ; bat unity 
as distinguished from mere oneness of effect comé@s, in art as in 
nature, by complexity of purpose ;—a complexity wherein each 
purpose is alternately the means and the end of the others. 

Whether the object of the drama be more to represent action, 
or passion, or character, cannot be affirmed, because in the nature 
of things neither of these can be represented save in vital union 
with the others. If, however, either should have precedence, 
doubtless it is character, forasmuch as this is the common basis 
of the other two: but the complication and interaction of several 
characters is necessary to the development of any one ; the per- 
sons serving as the play-ground of each other’s transpirations, and 
reciprocally furnishing motives, impulses, and occasions. For 
every society, whether actual or dramatic, is a concresence of in- 
. dividuals: men do not grow and develop alone, but by and from 
each other; so that many have to. grow up together in order for 
any one to grow; the best part even of their individual life com- 
ing to them from or through the social organisation. And as men 
are ade, so they must be studied; as no one can grow by him- 


oP Ph pene ee. AT ee on od, oleeaitel ai 
7 ? . “ * 


INTRODUCTION. 389 


. 
q self, so none can be understood by himself: his character being 
partly derived, must also be partly interpreted, from the particular 
state of things in which he lives, the characters that act with him, 
and upon him. 

It may be from oversight of these things, that the first Act in 
Othello has been thought superfluous. If the rise, progress, and 
result of the Moor’s passion were the only aim of the work, that 
Act might indeed be dispensed with. But we must first know 
something of his character and the characters that act upon him, 
before we can rightly decide what and whence his passion is. , 
This knowledge ought to be, and in fact is, given in the opening 
scenes of the play. 

Again: We often speak of men as acting thus or thus, accord- 
ing as they are influenced from without. And in one sense this is 
true, yet not so, but that the man rather determines the motive, 
than the’ motive the man. For the same influences often move 
men in different directions, according to their several predispo- 
sitions of character. What is with one a motive to virtue, is with 
another a motive to vice, and with a third no motive at all. On 
the other hand, where the outward motions are the same, the in- 
ward springs are often very different: so that we cannot rightly 
interpret a man’s actions, without some forecast of his actnating 
principle ; his actions being the index of his character, and his 
character the light whereby that index is to be read. The first 
business, then, of a drama is, to give some preconception of the 
characters which may render their actions intelligible, and which 
may itself in turn receive further illustration from the actions, 

Now, there are few things in Shakespeare more remarkable 
thau the jadgment shown in his first scenes ; and perbaps the very- 
highest instance of this is in the opening of Othello, The play 
begins strictly at the beginning. and goes regularly forward, in- 
stead of beginning in the middle, as Johnson would have it, and 
then going both ways. The first Act gives the prolific germs from 
which the whole is evolved ; it is indeed the seminary of the whole 
play, and unfolds the characters in their principles, as the other 
Acts do in their phenomena. The not attending duly to what is 
there disclosed has caused a good deal of false criticism on the 
play; as, for example, in the case of Iago, who, his earlier de- 
velopments being tbus left out of the account, or not properly 
weighed, has been supposed to act froin revenge ; and then, as no 
adequate motives for such a revenge are revealed, the character 
| has been thought unnatural. 

The main passions and proceedings of the drama all have their 
primum mobile in Iago; and the first Act amply discloses what 
he is made of and moved by. As if on purpose to prevent any 
mistake touching his springs of action, he is set forth in various 
aspects having no direct bearing on the main course of the play, 
He comes before us exercising his faculties on the anpe Rcderigo, 


33 * 


-_ -_ \} 


399 OTHELLO, THE MOOR OF VENICE. 


and thereby spilling out the secret of his habitual motives and im- 
pulses. That his very frankness may serve to heighten our opin- 
ion of his sagacity, the subject he is practising upon is at once 
seen to be a person who, from strength of passion, weakness of 
understanding, and want of ‘character, will be kept from sticking 
at his own professions of villany. So that the freedom with which 
he here unmasks himself only lets us into his keen perceptions of 
his whens and hows. 

We know from the first, that the bond of union between them 
is the purse. Roderigo thinks he is buying up Iago’s talents and 
efforts: This is just what Iago means to have him think 5 and it 
is something doubtful which glories most, the one in having money 
to bribe talents, or the other in having wit to catch money. Still 
it is plain enough that Jago, with a pride of intellectual mastery 
far stronger than his Jove of Iucre, cares less for the money than 
for the fun of wheedling and swindling others out of it. 

But while Iago is selling pledges of assistance to his dupe, 
there is the stubborn fact of his being in the service of Othello ; 
and Roderigo cannot understand how he is to serve two masters 
at once whose interests are so conflicting. In order, therefore, to 
engage his faith without forsaking the Moor, he has to persuade 
Roderigo that he follows the Moor but to’serve his turn upon him. 
A hard. task indeed ; but, for that very cause, all the more grate- 
ful to him, since, from its peri] and perplexity, it requires the great 
stress of cunning, and gives the wider scope for his ingenuity. 
The very anticipation of the thing oils bis faculties into eestacy 5 
his heart seems in a paroxysm of delight while venting his pas- 
sion for hypocrisy, as if this most Satanical attribute served him 
for a muse, and inspired him with an energy and eloquence not 
his own. 

Still, to make his scheme work, he must allege some reasons for 
his purpose touching the Moor: for Roderigo, gull though he be, 
is not so gullible as to entrust his cause to a groundless treachery ; 
he must know something of the strong provocations which have 
Jed Jago to cherish such designs. Jago understands this perfect- 
Jy : he therefore pretends a secret grudge against Othello, which 
he is but bolding in till he can find or make a fit occasion ; and 
therewithal assigns such grounds and motives as he knows will 
secure faith in his pretence ; whereupon the other gets too warm 
with the anticipated fruits of his treachery to suspect any similar 
designs on himself. Wonderful indeed are the arts whereby. the 
rogue wins and keeps his ascendancy over the gull! During 
their conversation, we can almost see the former worming himself 
into the latter, like a corkscrew into a cork. 

But Iago has a still harder task, to carry Roderigo along in a 
criminal quest of Desdemona; for his character is marked rather 
by want of principle than by bad principle, and the passion with 
which she has inspired him is incompatible with any purpose of 


INTRODUCTION. 391 


dishonouring her. Until the proceedings before the Senate, he 
hopes her father will break off the match with Othello, so that she 
will again be open to an honourable solicitation; but, when he 
finds her married, and the marriage ratified by her father, he is 
for giving up in despair. But Iago again besets him, like an evil 
angel, and plies his witcberaft with augmented vigour. Himself 
an atheist of female virtue, he has no way to gain his point but 
by debauching Roderigo’s mind with his own atheism. With an 
overweening pride of wealth Roderigo unites considerable respect 
for womanhood. Therefore Jago at once flatters his pride by 
urging the power of money, and inflames his passion by urgiug 
the frailty of woman : for the greatest preventive of dishonourable 
passion is faith in the virtue of its object. Throughout this un- 
dertaking, Iago’s passionless soul revels amid lewd thoughts and 
images, like a spirit broke loose from the pit. With his nimble 
fancy, his facility and felicity of combination, fertile, fluent, and 
apposite in plausibilities, at one and the same time stimulating 
Roderigo’s inclination to believe, and stifling bis ability to refute, 
what is said, he literally overwhelms his power of resistance. By 
often iterating the words, “put money in your purse,” he tries to 
make up in earnestness of assertion whatever may be wanting in 
the cogency of his reasoning, and, in proportion as Roderigo’s 
mind lacks room for his arguments, to subdue him by mere vio- 
lence of impression. Glorying alike in mastery of intellect and 
of will, he would so make Roderigo part of himself, like his hand 
or foot, as to be the immediate organ of his own volitions. Noth- 
ing can surpass the fiendish chuckle of self-satisfaction with which 
he turns from his conquest to sneer at the victim : 


«“ Thus do I ever make my fool'my purse ; 
For I mine own gain’d knowledge should profane, 
If I would time expend with such a snipe, 
But for my sport and profit.” 


So much for Iago’s proceedings with the gull. The sagacity 
with which he feels and forescents his way into Roderigo is only 
equalled by the skill with which, while clinching the nail of one 
conquest, he prepares the subject, by a sort of forereaching pro- 
cess, for a further conquest. 

Roderigo, if not preoccupied with vices, is empty of virtues ; 
so that Jago has but to play upon his vanity and passion, and ruin 
him through these. But Othello has no such avenues open: the 
villain can reach him ouly through his virtues ; has no way to work 
bis ruin but by turning his honour and integrity against him. And 
the same exquisite tact of character, which prompts his frankness 
to the former, counsels the utmost closeness to the latter. Know- 
ing Othello’s “perfect soul,” he dare not make to him the least 
tender of dishonourable services, lest he should repel his confi- 
dence, and incur his resentment. Still he is quite moderate in his 


392 OTHELLO, THE MOOR OF VENICE. 


professions, taking shrewd care not to whiten the sepulchre so 
much as to provoke an investigation of its contents. He there- 
fore rather modestly acknowledges his conscientious scruples than 
boasts of them ; as though, being a soldier, he feared that such 
things might speak more for his virtue than for his manhood. And 
yet his reputation for exceeding honesty has something suspicious 
about it, for it looks as though he bad studied to make that virtue 
somewhat of a speciality in his outward carriage; whereas true 
honesty, like charity, naturally shrinks from being matter of public 
fame, lest by notoriety it should get corrupted into vanity or pride. 

Jago’s method with the Moor is, to intermix confession and pre- 
tension in such a way that the one may be taken as proof of mod- 
esty, the other, of fidelity. When, for example, he affects te dis- 
qualify his own testimony, on the ground that “it is his nature’s 
plague to spy into abuses,” he of course designs a contrary im- 
pression 5 as, in actual lifes men often acknowledge real vices, in 
order to be acquitted of them. ‘That his accusation of others may 
stand the clearer of distrust, he prefaces it by accusing himself. 
Acting, too, as if he spared no pains to be right, yet still feared 
he was wrong, his very opinions carry the weight of facts, as hav- 
ing forced themselves upon bim against his will. When, watchb- 
ing his occasion, he proceeds to set bis’ scheme of mischief at 
Seis his mind seems struggling with some terrible secret whieh 
he dare not Jet out, yet cannot ‘eee in; which breaks from bim in 
spite of himself, and even because of his fear to utter it. He thus 
manages to be heard and still seem overheard, that so he may not 
be held responsible for his words, any more than if he had spoken 
in his sleep. In those well-known lines, —** Good name, in man 
and woman, Is the immediate jewel of their souls,” &ec.,—he but 
gives out that he is restrained only by tenderness to others from 
uttermg what would blast them. And there is, withal, a dark, 
frightful significance in his manner, which puts the hearer in an 
agony of curiosity : the more he refuses to tell his thoughts, the 
more he sharpens the desire to know them: when questioned, he 
so states his reasons for not speaking, that in efiect they compel 
the Moor to extort the secret from him. For his purpose is, not 
merely to deceive Othello, but to get his thanks for deceiving bim. 

It is worth remarking, that Iago has a peculiar classification, 
whereby all the movements of our nature fall under the two heads 
of sensual and rational. Now, the healthy mind is marked by 
openness to impressions from without; is apt to be overmastered 
by the inspiration of external objects ; in which ease the under- 
standing is kept subordinate to the social, moral, and religious 
sentiments. But our ancient despises all this. Mau, argues he, 
is made up altogether of intellect and appetite, so that whatever 
motions do not spring from the former must be referred to the lat- 
ter. The yielding to inspirations from without argues an ignoble 
want of spiriiual force; to be overmastered by external objects 


INTRODUCTION. 393 


infers a conquest of the flesh over the mind; all the religions of 
our nature, as love, honour, reverence, according to this liberal 
and learned spirit are but «a lust of the blood and a permission 
of the will,” and therefore things to be Jooked down upon with 
contempt. Hence, when his mind walks amidst the better grow- 
ings of humanity, hei is “nothing, if not critical:”’ so he pulls up 
every flower, however beautiful, to find a flaw in the root ; and of 
course flaws the root in pulling it. For, indeed, he has, properly 
speaking, no susceptibilities ; his mind is perfectly unimpressible, 
receives nothing, yields to nothing, but cuts its way through every 
thing like a flint. 

It appears, then, that in Jago intellectuality itself is made a 
character ; that is, the intellect has cast off all allegiance to the 
moral and religious sentiments, and become a Jaw and an impulse 
to itself; so that the mere fact of his being able to do a thing is 
sufficient reason for doing it. For, in such cases, the mind comes 
to act, not for any outward ends or objects, but merely for the sake 
of acting ; has a passion for feats of agility and strength; and 
may even go so far as to revel amid the dangers aud diffe ulties 
of wicked undertakings. We thus have, not eiiead a craving for 
carnal indulgences, but a cold, dry pruriency of intellect, or as 
Mr. Dana aptly styles it, “a lust of the brain,” which naturally 
manifests itself in a fanaticism of mischief, a sort of hungering 
and thirsting after unrighteousness. Of course, therefore, lago 
shows no addiction to iacemethities i on the contrary, al] his pas- 
sions are concentrated in the head, all his desires eminently spirit- 
ual and Satanical; so that he scorns the lusts of the flesh, or, if 
indulging them at all, generally does it in a criminal way, and not 
so much for the indulgence as for the criminality involved. Such 
appears to be the motive principle of Satan, who, so far as we 
know, is neither a glutton, nor a wine-bibber, nor a debauchee, 
but an impersonation of pride aid self-will; and therefore prefers 
such a line of action as will most exercise and demonstrate his 
power. 

Jn our remarks on Edmund, we have observed that he does not 
so much make war on morality, as shift ber out of the way, to 
make room for his wit: seeing his road elear but for moral re- 
straints, he politely bows them out of door, lest they should hinder 
the free working of his faculties. Iago differs from him, in that 
he chooses rather to invade than elude the laws of morality : when 
he sees Duty coming, he takes no pains to play round or get by 
her, but rather goes out of his way to meet her, as if on purpose 
to spit in her face and walk over her. hat a thing ought not to 
be done, is thus with him a motive for doing it, because, the worse 
the deed, the more it shows his freedom and power. When he 
owns to himself that “the Moor is of a constant, loving, noble 
nature,” it is not so much that he really feels these qualities ip 
him, as that, granting him to have them, there is the greater merit 


304 OTHELLO, THE MOOR OF VENICE. 


in hating him. For anybody can hate a man for his faults ; but 
to hate a man for his virtues, is something original ; involves, so 
to speak, a declaration of moral independence. So, too, in the 
soliloquy where he speaks of loving Desdemona, he first disclaims 
any unlawful passion for ber, and then adds, parenthetically 
«though, peradventore, I stand accountant for as greata sin 5” 
as much as to say, that whether guilty or not he did not eare, and 
dared the responsibility at all events, So that, to adopt a distine- 
tion from Dr. Chalmers, he here seems not so much an atheist as 
an antitheist in morality. We remember that the late Mr. Booth, 
in pronouncing these words, cast his eyes upwards, as if looking 
Heaven in the face with a sort of defiant smile! 

That Iago prefers lying to telling the trath, is implied in what 
we have said. Perhaps, indeed, such a preference is inseparable 
from his inordinate intellectuality. For it is a great mistake to 
suppose that a man’s love of truth will needs be in proportion to 
his intellectuality: on the contrary, an excess of this may cause 
him to prefer lies, as yielding larger scope for activity and display 
of mind. For they who thrive by the truth naturally attribute 
their thrift to her power, not to their own; and success, coming to 
them as a gift, rather humbles than elates them. On the other 
hand, he who.thrives by lying can reckon himself an overmateh 
for truth; he seems to owe none of his success to nature, but rather 
to have wrung it out in spite of her. Even so, lago’s character- 
istic satisfaction seems to stand in a practical reversing of moral 
distinctions ; for example, in causing his falsehood to do the work 
of truth, or another’s truth, the work of falsehood. For, to make 
virtue pass for virtue, and pitch for pitch, is no triamph at all; but 
to make the one pass for the other, is a triumph indeed! Tago 
glories in thus seeming to convict appearances of untruth ; in com- 
pelling nature, as it were, to own her secret deceptions, and ac- 
knowledge him too much for her. Hence his adroit practice to 
appear as if serving Roderigo, while really using him. Hence his 
purpose, not merely to deceive the Moor, but to get his thanks for 
doing so, Therefore it is that he takes such a malicious pleasure 
in turning Desdemona’s conduct wrong side out ; for, the more 
angel she, the greater his triumph in making her seem a devil. 

There is, indeed, no touching the bottom of Iago’s art: sleep- 
less, unrelenting, inexhaustible, with an energy that never flags, 
and an alertness that nothing can surprise, he outwits every ob- 
stacle and turns it into an ally; the harder the material before him, 
the more greedily does he seize it, the more adroitly work it, the 
more effectively make it tell; and absolutely persecutes the Moor 
with a redundancy of proof. When, for instance, Othello drops 
the words, “and yet how nature, erring from itself ;” meaning 
simply that no woman is altogether exempt from frailty ; Iago 
with inscrutable sleight-of-hand forthwith steals in upon him, under 
cover of this remark, a cluster of pregnant insinuations, as but so 


‘ 


INTRODUCTION. 395 


many inferences from his suggestion ;-and so manages to impart 
his own thoughts to the Moor, by seeming to derive them from him. 
Othello is thus brought to distrust all his original perceptions, to 
renounce his own understanding, and accept lago’s instead. And 
such, in fact, is lago’s aim, the very earnest and pledge of his in- 
tellectual mastery. Nor is there any thing that he seems to take 
with more gust, than the pain he inflicts by making the Moor think 
himself a fool; that be has been the easy dupe of Desdemona’s 
arts; and that he owes his deliverance to the keener insight and 
sagacity of his honest, faithful ancient. 

But there is scarce any wickedness conceivable, into which such 
a lust and pride of intellect and will may not carry a man. Crav- 
ing for action of the most exciting kind, there is a fascination for 
him in the very danger of crime. Walking the plain, safe, straight- 
forward path of truth and nature, does not excite and occupy him 
enough ; he prefers to thread the dark, perilous intricacies of some 
hellish plot, or to balance himself, as it were, on a rope stretched 
over an abyss, where danger stimulates and success demonstrates 
his agility. Even if remorse overtake such a man, its effect is to 
urge him deeper into crime; as the desperate gamester naturally 
tries to bury his chagrin at past losses in the increased excitement 
of a larger stake. 

Critics have puzzled themselves a good deal about Iago’s mo- 
tives. The truth is, “natures such as his spin motives out of their 
own bowels.” What is said of one of Wordsworth’s characters 
in The Borderers, holds equally true of our ancient: 


“There needs no other motive 
Than that most strange incontinence in crime 
Which haunts this Oswald. Power is life to him 
And breath and being; where he cannot govern, 
He will destroy.” 


If it be objected to this view, that Iago states his motives to 
Roderigo ; we answer, Iago is a liar, and is trying to dupe Rod- 
erigo; and knows he must allege some motives, to make the other 
trust him. Or, if it be objected that he states them in soliloquy, 
when there is no one present for him to deceive ; again we answer, 
Yes there is; the very one he cares most to deceive, namely, him- 
self. And indeed the terms of this statement clearly denote a 
foregone conclusion, the motives coming in only as an afier-thought. 
The truth is, he cannot quite look his purpose in the face; itis a 
little too fiendish for his steady gaze ; and he tries to hunt up or 
conjure up some motives, to keep the peace between it and his 
conscience. ‘This is what Coleridge justly calls “ the motive-hunt- 
ing of a motionless malignity ;” and well may he add, “ how 
awful it is!” 

Much has been said about Iago’s acting from revenge. But he 
has no cause for revenge, unless to deserve his love be such a cause. 


. 


396 OTHELLO, THE MOOR OF VENICE. 


For revenge supposes some injury received, real or fancied ; and 
the sensibility whence it springs cannot but make some discrimina- 
uon as to its objects, So that, if this were his motive, he would 
respect the innocent while crushing the guilty, there being. else, no 
revenge in the case. The impossibility, indeed, of accounting for 
his conduct on such grounds is the very reason why the character, 
judged on such grounds, has been pronounced unnatural. It is 
true, he tries to suspect, first Othello, and then Cassio, of having 
wronged him: he even finds or feigns a certain rumour to that ef- 
fect; yet shows, by his manner of talking about it, that he does 
not himself believe it, or rather does not care whether it be true or 
not. And he elsewhere owns that the reasons he alleges are but 
pretences, after all... Even while using his divinity, he knows it is 
the «divinity of hell,’ else he would scorn to use it; and boasts 
of the intention to entrap his victims through their friendship for 
him, as if his obligations to them were his only provocations against 
them. For, to bad men, obligations often are provocations. That 
he ought to honour them, and therefore envies them, is the only 
wrong they have done him, or that he thinks they have done him; 
and he means to indemnify himself for their right to his honour, by 
ruining them through the very gifts and virtues which have caused 
his envy. Meanwhile, he amuses his reasoning powers by invent- 
ing a sort of ex-post-facto motives for his purpose; the same wicked : 
busy-mindedness, that suggests the crime, prompting him to play 
with the possible reasons for it. 

We have dwelt the longer on Iago, because without a just and 
thorough insight of him Othello cannot be rightly understood, as 
the source and quality of his action require to be judged from the 
influences that are made to work upon him. The Moor has for the 
most part been regarded as specially illustrating the workings of 
jealousy. Whether there be any thing, and, if so, how much, of 
this passion in him, may indeed be questions having two sides ; but 
we may confidently affirm that he has no special predisposition to 
jealousy ; and that whatsoever of it there may be in him does not 
grow in such a way, nor from such causes, that it can justly be 
held as the leading feature of his character, much less as his char- 
acter itself; though such has been the view more commonly taken 
of him. On this point, there has been a’strange ignoring of the 
inscrutable practices in which his passion originates. Instead of 
going behind the scene, and taking its grounds of judgment direct- 
ly from the subject himself, criticism has trusted overmuch in what 
is said of him by other persons in the drama, to whom he must 
perforce seem jealous, because they know and can know nothing 
of the devilish cunning that has been at work with him. And the 
common opinion has no doubt been much furthered by the stage ; 
Jago’s villainy being represented as so open and barefaced, that 
the Moor must have been grossly stupid or grossly jealous not to 
see through him ; whereas, in fact, so subtle is the villain’s craft, 


INTRODUCTION. 397 


so close and involved are his designs, that Othello deserves but 
the more respect and honour for being taken in by him, 

Coleridge is very bold and clear in defence of the Moor. “ Othel- 
lo,” says he, “does not kill Desdemona in jealousy, but in a con- 
viction foreed upon him by the almost superbuman art of Tago,— 
such a conviction as any man would and mast have entertained, 
who had believed Jago’s honesty as Othello did. We, the audi- 
ence. know that Iago is a villain from the beginning ; but, in 
considering the essence of the Shakespearian Othello, we must 
perseveringly place ourselves in his situation, and under his cir- 
cumstances. ‘Then we shall immediately. feel the fundamental 
difference between the solemn agony of the noble Moor, and the 
wretched fishing jealousy of Leontes.” And in our Introduction 
to The Winter’s Tale is a passage from the same hand, giving 
such an account of the nature and workings of jealousy as would 
fully clear the Moor of acting from that passion. So, too, in this 
play Iago describes jealousy as “the monster that doth make the 
meat it feeds on.” And Emilia speaks to the same sense, when 
Desdemona acquits her husband of jealousy on the ground that 
she has never given him cause: “ But jealous souls will not be 
answer’d so; they are not ever jealous for the cause, but jealous, 
for they’re jealous.” 

If jealousy be indeed such a thing as is here described, it seems 
clear enough that a passion thus self-generated and self-sustained 
ought not to be confounded with a state of mind superinduced, 
like Othello’s, by forgery of external proofs, —a forgery wherein 
himself has no share but as the victim. And we may safely af- 
firm that he has no aptitude for such a passion ; it is against the 
whole grain of his mind and character. Iago evidently knows 
this; knows the Moor to be incapable of spontaneous distrust 5 
that he must see, before he’l]l doubt; that when he doubts, he’Jl 
prove; and that when he has proved, he will retain his honour at 
all events, and retain his love, if it be compatible with honour, 
Accordingly, lest the Moor should suspect himself of jealousy, 
Iago pointedly warns him to beware of it; puts him on his guard 
against such self-delusions, that so bis mind may be more open to 
the force of evidence, and lest from fear of being jealous he should 
entrench himself in the opposite extreme, and so be proof against 
conviction. 

The struggle, then, in Othello is not between love and jealousy, 
bu: between love and honour ; and Jago’s machinations are exactly 
adupted to bring these two latter passions into collision. Indeed 
it is thé Moor’s very freedom from a jealous temper, that enables 
the villain to get the mastery of him, Such a character as his, 
so open, so generous, so confiding, is just the one to be taken in 
the strong toils of Iago’s cunning ; to have escaped them, would 
have argued him a partaker of the strategy under which he falls. 
It is both the law and the impulse of a high and delicate honour, 


VOL. X. 34 


3898 ~ OTHELLO, THE MOOR OF VENICE. 


to rely on another’s word, unless we have proof to the contrary ; 
to presume that things and persons are what they seem: and it is 
an impeachment of our own veracity to suspect falsehood in one 
who bears a character for truth. Such is precisely the Moor’s 
condition in respect of Jago; a man whom he has long known, 
and never caught in a lie; whom he as often trusted, and never 
seen cause to regret it. So that, in our judgment of the Moor, 
we onght to proceed as if his wife were really guilty of what she 
is charged with; for, were she ever so guilty, he could scarce 
have stronger proof than he has; and that the evidence owes all 
its force to the plotting and lying of another, surely makes nothing 
2gainst him. 

Nevertheless, we are far from upholding, that Othello does not 
at any stage of the proceedings show sigus of jealousy. For the 
elements of this passion exist in the strongest and healthiest minds, 
and may be kindled into a transient sway over their motions, or 
atyleast so as to put them on the alert ; and all we mean to affirm 
is, that jealousy is not Othello’s characteristic, and does not form 
the actuating principle of his conduct. It is indeed certain that 
he doubts before he has proof; but then it is also certain that he 
does not act upon his doubt, till proof has been given him. As 
to the rest, it seems to us there can be no dispute about the thing, 
but only about the term; some understanding by jealousy one 
thing, some another. We presume that no one would have spoken 
of the Moor as acting from jealousy, in case his wife had really 
been guilty: his course would then have been regarded simply as 
the result of conviction upon evidence ; which is to our mind near- 
ly decisive of the question. 

Accordingly, in the killing of Desdemona we have the proper 
inarks of a judicial as distinguished from a revengeful act. The 
Moor goes about her death calmly and religionsly, as a duty from 
which he would gladly escape by his own death, if he could ; and 
we feel that his heart is wrung with inexpressible anguish, though 
his hand is firm. It is,a part of his heroism, that as he prefers 
her to himself, so he prefers honour to her; and he manifestly 
contemplates ber death as a sacrifice due to the institution which 
he fully believes, and has reason to believe, she has mocked and 
profaned. So that we cordially subscribe to the words of Ulrici 
‘respecting him: “ Jealousy and revenge seize his mind but tran- 
siently ; they spring up and pass away with the first burst of pas 
sion; being indeed but the momentary phases under which love 
and honour, the ruling principles of his soul, evince the deep 
wounds they are suffering.” 

The general custom of the stage has been, to represent Othello 
as a full-blooded Negro ; and criticism has been a good deal ex- 
ercised of late on the question whether Shakespeare really meant 
him for such. The only expression in the play that would fairly 
infer him to he a Negro, is Roderigo’s “ thick-lips.” But Rod- 


INTRODUCTION. 399 


erigo there speaks as a disappointed lover, seeking to revenge 
himself on the cause of his disappointment. We all know how 
common it is for coxcombs like him, when balked and mortified in 
rivalry with their betters, to fly off into extravagant terms of dis- 
paragement and reproach ; their petulant vanity easing and sooth- 
ing itself by calling them any thing they may wish them to be. 
It is true, the Moor i is several times “spoken of as black ; but this 
term was often used, as it still is, of a tawny skin in comparison 
with one that is fair. So in Antony and Cleopatra the heroine 
speaks of herself as being “with Phoebus’ amorous pinches 
black ;” and in The Two Gentlemen of Verona Thurio, when told 
that Silvia says his face is a fair one, replies, —“ Nay, then the 
wanton lies : my face is black.’”’ But, indeed, the calling a dark- 
complexioned white person black is as common as almost any form 
of speech in the language. 

It would seem, from Othello’s being so often called “ the Moor,” 
that there ought to be no question about what the Poet meant hint 
to be. For the difference between Moors and Negroes was prob- 
ably as well understood in his time as it is now; and there is no 
more evidence in this play that he thought them the same, than 
there is in The Merchant of Venice, where the Prince of Morocco 
comes.as a suitor to Portia, and in a stage-direction of the old 
quarto is called “a ene Moor.” Othello, as may be seen in 
Act iv. se. 2, note 22, was a Mauritanian prince, for Iago there 
speaks of his purposed retirement to Mauritania as his home. 
Consistently with this, the same speaker in another place uses 
terms implying him to be a native of Barbary, Mauritania wir hs 
the old name of one of the Barbary States. Iago, to be sure, i 
an unscrupuious liar; but then he has more cunning than to ie 
when telling the truth will stand with his purpose, as it evidently 
will here. So that there needs no scruple about endorsing the ar- 
A ebeesgS of Mr. White, in *his Shakespeare’s Scholar. “ Shake- 
speare,” says he, “nowhere calls Othello an Ethiopian, and also 
does not apply the term to Aaron in the horrible Titus Andron- 
icus ; but he continually speaks of both as Moors ; and as he has 
used the first word elsewhere, and certainly had use for it as a re- 
proach in the mouth of Iago, it seems that he must have been fully 
aware of the distinction in grade between the two races. Indeed 
I never could see the least reason for supposing that Shakespeare 
intended Othello to be represented as a Negro. With the Negroes, 
the Venetians had nothing to do, that we ‘know of, and could not 
have in the natural course 3 of things § whereas, with their over-the- 
way neighbours, the Moors, they were continually brought in con- 
tact. These were a warlike, civilized, and enterprising race, which 
could furnish an Othello.” , 

That the question may, if possible, be thoroughly shut up and 
done with, we will add the remarks of Coleridge on the aforesaid 
custom of the stage: “ Eveu if we supposed this an uninterrupted 


4090 OTHELLO, THE MOOR OF VENICE. 


tradition of the theatre, a fhat Shakespeare himself, from want 
of scenes, and the experience that nothing could be made too 
marked for the senses of his audience, had practically sanctioned 
it, — would this prove aught concerning his own intention as a poet 
for all ages? Can we imagine him so utterly ignorant as to make 
a barbarous Negro plead royal birth,—at a time, too, when Ne- 
groes were not known except as slaves ? As for Iago’s language 
to Brabantio, it implies merely that Othello was a Moot: that is, 
black. Though I think the rivalry of Roderigo sufficient to ac- 
count for his wilful confusion of Moor and Negro ; yet, even if 
compelled to give this up, I should think it only adapted for the 
acting of the day, and should complain of an enormity built on a 
single word, in direct contradiction to Iago’s ‘ Barbary horse.’ 
Besides, if we could in good earnest believe Shakespeare i igno- 
rant of the distinction, still why should we adopt one disagreeable 
possibility, instead of a ten times greater and more pleasing prob- 
ability? It is a common error to ‘mistake the epithets applied by 
the dramatis persone to each other, as truly descriptive of what 
the audience ought to see or know. No doubt, Desdemona ‘saw 
Othello’s visage in bis mind ;’ yet, as we are constituted, and 
most surely as an English audience was disposed in the beginning 
of the seventeenth century, it would be something monstrous to 
conceive this beautiful Venetian girl falling in Jove with a veritable 
Negro. It would argue a disproportionateness, a want of balance, 
in Desdemona, which Shakespeare does not appear to have in the 
least contemplated.” 

The character of Othello, direct and single in itself, is worked 
out with great breadth and clearness. And here again the first 
Act is peculiarly fruitful of significant points ; fornishing;,’ in respect 
of him as of Iago, the seminal ideas of which the subsequent de- 
tails are the natural issues and offshoots. In the opening scene 
we have Iago telling various lies about the Moor ; yet his lying is 
so managed as, while effecting its immediate purpose on the gull, 
to be at “the same time more or less suggestive of the truth: he 
caricatures Othello, but is too artful a caricaturist to let the pe- 
culiar features of the subject be lost in an excess of misreprese?- 
tation; that is. there is truth enough in what he says, to make it 
pass with one who wishes it true, and whose mind is too weak to 
prevent such a wish from growing into belief. 

Othello’s mind is strongly chasaed with the natural enthusiasm 
of high principle and earnest feeling , and this gives a certain ele- 
aaa and imaginative turn to his manner of thought and speech. 
In the deporiment of such a man there is apt to be something upon 
which a cold and crafty malice can easily stick the imputation of 
being haughty and grandiloquent, or of « loving his own pride and 
purposes. iu Especially, when urged with unseasonable or imper- 
tinent solicitations, his answers are apt to be in such a style, that 
they can hardly pass through an Iagoish mind, without catching 


— 


INTRODUCTION. 401 


the air of strutting and bombastic evasion. Fora man like Othello 
will not stoop to be the advocate or apologist of himself: it is 
enough that he stands justified to his own sense of right ; and if 
others dislike his course, this does not shake him, as he did not 
take it with a view to please‘them: he acts from his own mind ; 
and to explain his_conduct, save where he is responsible, looks 
like soliciting an endorsement from others, as though the couscious- 
ness of rectitude were not enough to sustain him. Such a man, 
if his fortune and his other parts be at all in proportion. commonly 
succeeds 5 for by his strength of character he naturally creates a 
sphere which himself alone can fill, and so makes himself neces- 
sary. On the other hand, a subtle and malignant rogue, like Iago, 
while fearing to be known as the enemy of such a man, envies his 
success, and from this envy affects contempt of his qualities. For 
the proper triumph of a bad man over his envied superiors is, to 
scoff at the very gifts which gnaw him. 

The intimations, then, derived from Iago lead us to regard the 
Moor, before we meet with him, as one who deliberates calmly, 
and therefore decides firmly. His refusing to explain his conduct 
where he is not responsible, is a pledge that he will not shrink 
from any responsibility where he truly owes it. In his first reply 
when urged by Iago to elude Brabantio’s pursuit, our expectations 
are made good. We see that, as be acts from honour and _ prin- 
ciple, so he will cheerfully abide the consequences. Full of equa- 
nimity and firmuess, he is content to let the reasons of his course 
appear in the issues thereof ; whereas Tago delights in stating his 
reasons, as giving scope for mental activity and display. 

From his characteristic intrepidity and calmness, the Moor, as 
we learn in the sequel, has come to be esteemed, by those who 
know him best, as one whom « passion cannot shake.”’ For the 
passions are in him both tempered and strengthened by the energy 
of higher principles ; and, if kept under reason, the stronger they 
are, the more they exalt reason. This feature of Othello is well 
seen at his meeting with Brabantio and attendants, when the par- 
ties are on the point-of fighting, and he quiets them by exclaim- 
ing, “ Keep up your bright swords, for the dew will rust them ;” 
where the belligerent spirit is as much charmed down by his play- 
ful logic, as overawed by his sternness of command. So, too, 
when Brabantio calls out, “ Down with him, thief!’ and he re- 
plies, “Good signior, you shall more command with years than 
with your weapons.” 

Such is our sturdy warrior’s habitual carriage : no upstart exi- 
gency disconcerts him; no obloquy exasperates him to violence 
or recrimination: peril, perplexity, provocation rather augment 
than impair his self-possession ; and the more deeply be is stirred, 
the more calmly and steadily he acts. This calmness of intensity 
is most finely displayed in his address to the Senate, where the 
words, though they fall on the ear as softly as an evening breeze, 


34 * 26 


402 OTHELLO, THE MOOR OF VENICE. 


seem charged with life from every part of his being. All 13 grace 
and modesty and gent'eness, yet what, strength and dignity! the 
union of perfect repose and impassioned energy. Perhaps the 
finest point of contrast between Othello and Iago lies in the method 
of their several minds. Jago is morbidly introversive and self- 
explicative ; his mind is ever busy spinning oat its own contents 5 
and he takes no pleasure either in viewing or in showing things, 
till he has baptized them in his own spirit, and then seems chuc- 
kling inwardly as he holds them up reeking with the slime he has 
dipped them in. In Othello, on the contrary, every thing is direct, 
healthy, objective ; and he reproduces in transparent diction the 
truth as revealed to him from without ; his mind being like a clear, 
even mirror which, invisible itself, renders back in its exact shape 
and colour whatsoever stands before it. 

We know of nothing in Shakespeare that has this quality more 
conspicuous than the Moor’s account “how he did thrive in this 
fair lady’s love, and she in his.” The dark man eloquent literally 
speaks in pictures. We see the silent blushing maiden moving 
about her household tasks, ever and anon turning her eye upon 
the earnest warrior; Jeaving the door open as she goes out of the 
room, that she may catch the tones of his voice; hastening back 
to her father’s side, as though drawn to the spot by some new im- 
pulse of filial attachment ; afraid to look the speaker in the face, 
yet unable to keep out of his presence, and drinking in with ear 
and heart every word of his marvellous tale: the Moor, mean- 
while, waxing more eloquent when this modest listener was by, 
partly because he saw she was interested, and partly because he 
wished to interest her still more. Yet we believe all he says, for 
the virtual presence of the things he describes enables us, as it 
were, to test his fidelity of representation. 

In his simplicity, however, he lets out a truth of which he seems 
not to have been aware. At Brabantio’s fireside he has been un- 
wittingly making love by his manner, before be was even con- 
scious of loving ; and, thought he was but listening for a disclosure 
of the lady’s feelings, while he was really soliciting a response to 
his own: for this is a matter wherein heart often calls and answers 
to heart, without giving the head any notice of its proceedings. 
His quick perception of the interest he had awakened is a con- 
fession of the interest he felt, the state of his mind coming out in 
his anxiety to know that of hers. And how natural it was that he 
should thus honestly think he was bat returning her passion, while 
it was his own passion that caused him to see or suspect she had 
any to be returned !- And so she seems to have understood the 
matter ; whereupon, appreciating the modesty that kept him silent, 
she gave him a hint of encouragement to speak. In his feelings, 
moreover, respect keeps pace with affection ; and he involuntarily 
seeks some tacit assurance of a return of his passion as a sort of 
permission to cherish and confess it. It is this feeling that origi 


Perens} 


INTRODUCTION. 403 


nates the delicate, reverential courtesy, the ardent, yet distant, and 
therefore beautiful regards, with which a truly honourable mind 
instinctively attires itself towards its best object ; — a feeling that 
throws a majestic grace around the most unpromising figure, and 
endows the plainest features with something more eloquent than 
beauty. 

The often-alleged BEAinitss of Othello’s match has been mainly 
disposed of by what we have already said respecting his origin 
The rest of it, if there be any, may be safely left to the fact pf: his 
being honoured by the Venetian Senate, and a cherished guest at 
Brabantio’s fireside. At all events, we cannot help thinking that 
the noble Moor and his sweet lady have the very sort of resem- 
blance which people thus united ought to have; and their likeness 
seems all the better for being joined with so much of unlikeness. 
It is the chaste, beautiful wedlock of meekness an@magnanimity, 
where the aprard correspondence stands the more approved for 
the outward diversity ; and reminds us of what we are too apt to 
forget, that the stout, valiant soul is the chosen home of reverence 
and tenderness. Our heroic warrior’s dark, rough exterior is found 
to enclose a heart strong as a giant’s, yet soft and sweet as in- 
fancy. Such a marriage of bravery and gentleness proclaims that 
beauty is an overmatch for strength; and that true delicacy is 
among the highest forms of power. 

Equally beautiful is the fact, that Desdemona has the heart to 
recognise the proper complement of herself beneath such an un- 
inviting appearance. Perhaps none but so pure and gentle a 
being could have discerned the real gentleness of Othello through 
so many obscurations. ‘To her fine sense, that tale of wild ad- 
ventures and mischances, which often did beguile her of ber tears, 
—a tale wherein another might have seen but the marks of a rude, 
coarse, animal strength, a disclosed the history of a most meek 
brave, manly soul. Nobly blind to whatsoever is repulsive in his 
manhood’s vesture of accidents. her thoughts are filled with “his 
honours and his valiant parts ;” his ungracious aspect is lost to 
her in his graces of character; and the shrine, that were else so 
unattractive to look upon, is made beautiful by the life with which 
her chaste eye sees it irradiated. 

In herself, Desdemona is not more interesting than several] of 
the Poet’s women; but perhaps noue of the others is in a con- 
dition so proper for developing the innermost springs of pathos. 
In her charaéter and sufferings there is a nameless something that 
haunts the reader’s mind, and hangs like a spell of compassionate 
sorrow upon the beatings of his heart : his thoughts revert to her 
and linger about her, as under a mysterious fascination of pity 
which they cannot shake off, and which is only kept from being 
painful by the sacred charm of beauty and eloquence that blends 
with the feeling while kindling it. It is remarkable, that the sym- 
pathies are not so deeply moved in the scene of her death, as in 


494 OTHELLO, THE MOOR OF VENICE. 


that where by the blows of her husband’s hand and tongue she is 
made to feel that she has lost him. Too innocent to suspect that 
she is suspected, she cannot for a long time understand nor im- 
agine the motive of his harshness ; and her errings in quest of 
excuses and apologies for him are deeply pathetic, inasmuch as 
they manifestly spring from her incapability of an impure thought. 
And the sense that the heart of his confidence is gone from her, 
and for what cause it is gone, comes upon ber Jike a dead stifling 
weight of agony and woe, which benumbs her to all other pains. 
She does not show any thing that can be properly called pangs 
of suffering ; the effect is too deep for that; the blow falling so 
heavy that it stuns her sensibilities into a sort of lethargy. 

Desdemoua’s character may almost be said to consist in the 
union of purity and impressibility. All her organs of sense and 
motion seem Perfectly ensouled, and her visible form instinct in 
every part with the spirit and intelligence of moral life. 


“ We understood 
Her by her sight; her pure and eloquent blood 
Spoke in her cheeks, and so distinctly wrought, 
That one might almost say her body thought.” 


Hence her father describes her as “a maiden never bold ; of spirit 
so still and quiet, that her motion blush’d at itself.” Which gives 
the idea of a being whose whole frame is so receptive of influences 
and impressions from without, who lives so entranced amid a world 
of beauty and delight, that her soul keeps ever looking and listen- 
ing ; and if at any time she chance upon a stray thonght or vision 
of berself, she shrinks back surprised and abashed, as though she 
had caught herself in the presence of a stranger whom modesty 
kept her from looking in the face. It is through this most delicate 
impressibility that she sometimes gets frightened out of her real 
character; as in her equivocation about the handkerchief, and her 
childlike pleading for life in the last scene ; where her perfect 
candour and resignation are overmastered by sudden impressions 
of terror, 

But, with all ber openness to influences from without, she is still 
susceptive only of the good. No element of impurity can insin- 
uate itself. Her nature seems wrought about with some suttle 
texture of moral sympathies and antipathies, which selects as by 
instinct whatsoever is pure, without taking any thought or touch 
of the evil mixed with it. Even Jago’s moral oil-of-vitriol can- 
not eat a passage into her mind: from his envenomed wit she ex- 
tracts the element of harmless mirth, without receiving or sus- 
pecting the venom with which it is charged. Thus the world’s 
contagious pass before her, yet dare not touch nor come near her, 
pecause she has nothing to sympathise with them or own their 
acquaintance. And so her life is like a quiet stream, 


INTRODUCTION. 405 


“In whose calm depth the beautiful and pure 
Alone are mirror’d ; which, though shapes of ill 
Do hover round its surface, glides in light, 
And takes no shadow from.them.” 


Desdemona’s heroism, we fear, is not of the kind to take very 
well with such an age of individual ensconcement as the present. 
Though of a “high and plenteous wit and invention,” this quality 
never makes any special report of itself: like Cordelia, all the 
parts of her being speak in such harmony that the intellectual 
tones may not be distinctly heard. Besides, her mind and char- 
acter were formed under that old-fashioned way of thinking which, 
regarding man and wife as socially one, legislated round them, not 
between them ; so that the wife naturally sought protection in her 
husband, instead of resorting to legal methods for protection aguinst 
him. Affection does indeed fill her with courage and energy of 
purpose: she is heroic to link her life with the man she loves 3 
heroic to do and suffer with him and for him after she is his; but, 
poor gentle soul! she knows no heroism that can prompt ber, in 
respect of him, to cast aside the awful prerogative of defence- 
lessness: that she has lost him, is what hurts her ; and this is a burt 
that cannot be salved with anger or resentment: so that her only 
strength is to be meek, uncomplaining, submissive in the worst 
that his hand may execute. Swayed by that power whose “ fa- 
vourite seat is feeble woman’s breast,” she is of course “a child 
to chiding,” and sinks beneath unkindness, instead of having the 
spirit to outface it. 

They err greatly, who think to school Desdemona in the doctrine 
of woman’s rights. When her husband has been shaken from bis 
confidence in her truth and loyalty, what can she care for her rights 
as awoman? To be under the necessity of asserting them, is to 
have lost and more than lost them. A constrained abstinence from 
evil deeds and unkind words bears no price with her; and to be 
sheltered from the wind and storm, is worse than nothing, unless 
she have a living fountain of light and warmth in the being that 
shelters her. But, indeed, the beauty of the woman is so hid in 
the affection and obedience of the wife, that it seems almost a 
profanation to praise it. As brave to suffer wrong as she is fear- 
ful to do it, there is a holiness in her mute resignation which ought, 
perhaps, to be kept, where the Poet has left it, veiled ffom all 
save those whom a severe discipline of humanity may have qual- 
ified for duly respecting it. At all events, whoever would get at 
her secret, let him study her as a pupil, not as a critic ; and until 
his inmost heart speaks her approval, let him rest assured that he 
is not competent to judge her. But if he have the gift to see that 
her whole course, from the first intimation of the gentle, sabmis- 
sive daughter, to the last groan of the ever-loving, ever-obedient, 
broken-hearted wife, is replete with the beauty and grace and 


406 OTHELLO, THE MOOR OF VENICE. 


holiness of womanhood, then Jet him weep, weep, for her ; so may 
he depart “a sadder and a wiser man.” As for her unresisting 
submissiveness, let no man dare to defend it! Assuredly, we shall 
do her a great wrong, if we suppose for a moment that she would 
not rather die by her hushand’s hand, than owe her life to any 
protection against him. What, indeed: were life, what could it be 
to her, since suspicion has fallen on her inmcency ? That ber 
busband could not, would not, dare not wrong her, even because 
she had trusted in him, and because in her sacred defencelessness 
she could not resist nor resent the wrong,— this is the only pro- 
tection from which she would not pray to be delivered. 

Coleridge has justly remarked upon the art shown in Iago, that 
the character, with all its inscrutable depravity, neither revolts nor 
seduces the mind: the interest of his part amounts almost to fas- 
cination, yet there is not the slightest moral taint or infection about 
it. Hardly less wonderful is the Poet’s skill in carrying the Moor 
through such a course of undeserved infliction, without any loosen- 
ing from him of our sympathy or respect. Deep and intense as 
is the feeling that goes along with Desdemona, Othello fairly di- 
vides it with her: nay, more; the virtues and sufferings of each 
are so managed as to heighten the interest of the other. The im- 
pression still waits upon him, that be does “nought in hate, but 
all in honour.” Nor is the mischief made to work through any 
vice or weakness perceived or felt in him, but rather through such 
qualities as lift him higher in our regard. Under the conviction 
that she, in whom he had built his faith and garnered up his heart, 
— that she, in whom he Jooked to find how much more blessed it 
is to give than to receive, has desecrated all his gifts, and tarned 
his very religion into sacrilege ;— under this conviction, all the 
poetry, the grace, the consecration, every thing that can beautify 
or gladden existence is gone ; his whole being, with its freight of 
hopes, memories, affections, is reduced to a total wreck; a last 
farewell to whatsoever has made life attractive, the cenditions, 
motives, prospects of noble achievement, is all there is left him: 
in brief, he feels literally unmade, robbed not only of the laurels 
he has won, but of the spirit that manned him to the winning of 
them; so that he can neither live nobly nor nobly die, but is 
doomed to a sort of living death, an object of scorn and loathing 
unto himself. In this state of mind, no wonder his thoughts reel 
and tofter, and cling convulsively to his honour, which is the only. 
thing that now remains to him, until in his efforts to rescue this he 
loses all, and has no refuge but in self-destruction, He approaches 
the awful task in the bitterness as well as the calmness of despair. 
In sacrificing his love to save his honour, he really performs the 
most heroic self-sacrifice ; for the taking of Desdemona’s life is to 
him something worse than to lose his own. Nor could he ever 
have loved her so much, had he not loved honour more. Her 
love for him, too, is based upon the very principle that now prompts 


INTRODUCTION. } 407 


and nerves him to the sacrifice. And as at last our pity for her 
rises into awe, so our awe of him melts into pity; the catastrophe 
thus blending their several virtues and sufferings into one most 
profound, solemn, sweetly-mournful impression. « Othello,” says 
Coleridge, “had no life but in Desdemona : — the belief that she, 
his angel, had fallen from the heaven of her native innocence, 
wrought a civil war in his heart. She is his counterpart; and, 
like him, is almost sanctified in our eyes by her absolute unsus- 
piciousness, and holy entireness of love. As the curtain drops, 
which do we pity the most 7” 


PREFACE TO THE QUARTO EDITION 
OF 1622. 


THE STATIONER TO THE READER. 


To set forth a book without an epistle, were like to the 
old English proverb, “A blue coat without a badge;” 
and, the author being dead, I thought good to take that 
piece of work upon me. To commend it, I will not; for 
that which is good I hope every man will commend with- 
out intreaty; and I am the bolder, because the author’s 
name is sufficient to vent his work. Thus leaving every 
one to the. liberty of judgment, I have ventured to print 
this play, and leave it to the general censure. 

Yours, 
THOMAS WALKLEY. 


PERSONS REPRESENTED. 


The Duxe of VENICE. 
BRABANTIO, a Senator. 

Two other Senators. 
GRATIANO, Brother to Brabantio. 
Lopovico, Kinsman to Brabantio. 
OTHELLO, the Moor. 

Cassio, his Lieutenant. 

TaGo, his Ancient. 

RopER1IGo, a Venetian Gentleman. 
Montano, Governor of Cyprus. 
A Clown, Servant to Othello. 

A Herald. 


DespDEmoNA, Othello’s Wife, Daughter to Brabantio. 
Emits, Wife to Iago. 
Branca, Mistress to Cassio. 


Officers, Gentlemen, Messengers, Musicians, Sailors, Attend- 
ants, &c. 


SCENE, for the first Act, in Venice; during the rest of the 
Play, at a Seaport in Cyprus. 


THE TRAGEDY OF OTHELLO. 


AGE, 


SCENE I. Venice. A Street. 


Enter Ropverico and Iaco. 


Rod. Tusu! never tell me; I take it much un- 
kindly, 
That thou, Iago, who hast had my purse 
As if the strings were thine, should’st know of this." 
Tago. ’Sblood! but you will not hear me: 
If ever I did dream of such a matter, 
Abhor me. 
Rod. Thou told’st me thou didst hold him in thy 
hate. 
Iago. Despise me, if I do not.” Three great ones 
of the city, 


1 That'is, the intended elopement. Roderigo has been suing 
for Desdemona’s hand, employing Iago to aid bim in his suit, and 
paying his service in advance. Of course the play opens pat upon 
her elopement with the Moor, and Roderigo presumes lago to have 
been in the secret of their intention. — The words, Tush in this 
speech, and ’Shlood in the next, are not in the folio. H. 

2 Admirable is the preparation, so truly and peculiarly Shake- 
spearian, in the introduction of Roderigo, as the dupe on whom 
Tago shall first exercise his art, and in so doing display bis own 
character. Roderigo, without any fixed principle, but not without 
the moral notions and sympathies, with honour which his rank and 
connections had hung upon him, is already well fitted and predis- 
posed for the purpose ; for very want of character, and strength 
of passion, like wind loudest in’ an empty house, constitute his 
character. The first three lines happily state the nature and 


VOL. X- 30 


uh Soper oe. * 


410 OTHELLO, ACTA 


In persunal suit to make me his lieutenant, 
Off-capp’d to him ;* and, by the faith of man, 

I know my price, I am worth no worse a place: 
But he, as loving his own pride and purposes, 
Evades them, with a bombast circumstance 
Horribly stuff’d with epithets of war; 

And, in conclusion,‘ 


foundation of the friendship between him and Iago,—the purse, 
—as also the contrast of Roderigo’s intemperance of mind with 
Tago’s coolness, — the coolness of a preconceiving experimenter. 
The mere language of protestation,— “If ever I did dream of 
such a matter, abhor me,” — which, falling in with the associative 
link. determines Roderigo’s continuation of complaint, — “ Thou 
told’st me thou didst hold him in thy hate,”’—elicits at Jength a 
true feeling of Iago’s mind, the dread of contempt habitual to those 
who encourage in themselves, and have their keenest pleasure in, 
the expression of contempt for others. Observe Iago’s high self- 
opinion, and the moral, that a wicked man will employ real feel- 
ings, as well as assume those most alien from his own, as instru- 
ments of his purposes. — COLERIDGE. H. 

3 So the folio; the quartos, « Oft capp’d.” To cap was often 
used for a salutation of respect, made by taking off the cap. Mod- 
ern editors generally prefer the quarto reading here. Knight, who 
adopts that of the folio, supports it with an argument that seems 
pretty conclusive: “As we read the passage, three great ones of 
the city wait upon Othello; they off-capp’d —they took eap in 
hand —in personal suit that he should make lago his lieutenant: 
but he evades them, &c.; he has already chosen his officer. Here 
is a scene befitting both the dignity of the great ones of the city 
and of Othello. The audience was given, the solicitation humbly 
made, the reasons for refusing it courteously assigned. But take 
the reading, oft capp’d, and we have Othello perpetually haunted 
by the three great ones, capping to him and repeating the same 
prayer, and he perpetually denying them with the same bombast 
circumstance.”’ The only reply to this is, that Iago is so nimble 
and so fertile a liar, that we can scarce take his words in any case 
as a just account of what the Moor has done. For the only ques- 
tion with him is, not what is true, but what will be believed. But 
the sense of the folio reading seems more in proportion to the gul- 
lability of the gull.— Circumstance is circumlocution ; often so 
used. Thus in The Merchant of Venice, Act i. sc. 1: “ You 
know me well, and herein spend but time, to wind about my love 
with circumstance. H. 

4 The words, “ And, in conclusion,” are not in the folio. 

H. 


sc. I. THE MOOR OF VENICE. All 


Nonsuits my mediators ; ‘for, certes,” says he, 

««] have already chose my officer.” 

And what was he? 

Forsooth, a great arithmetician, 

One Michael Cassio, a Florentine, 

A fellow almost damn’d in a fair wife ;° 

That never set a squadron in the field, . 

Nor the division of a battle knows 

More than a spinster; unless the bookish theoric, 

Wherein the toged consuls*® can propose 

As masterly as he: mere prattle, without practice, 

Is all his soldiership. But he, sir, had th’ election ; 

And I— of whom his eyes had seen the proof, 

At Rhodes, at Cyprus, and on other grounds 

Christian and heathen — must be be-lee’d and 
calm’d 


5 So the old copies, wife being spelt with a capital Jetter. The 
passage has caused a great deal of controversy. Tyrwhitt would 
read «fair life,” and Coleridge thinks this reading “ the true one, 
as fitting to Jago’s contempt for whatever did not display power, 
and that, intellectual power.” The change, however, seems in- 
admissible. The reference probably is: to Bianca, to whom, if 
Iago’s word may he trusted, report said that Cassio was almost 
married ; as he says to Cassio, in Act iv. se. 1,—+ The ery goes, 
that you shall marry her.” But perhaps it is meant.as character- 
istic of Iago to regard a wife and a mistress as all one. — Cassio 
is sneeringly called “a great arithmetician” and a “ counter- 
caster,” in allusion to the pursuits for which the Fliorentines were 
distinguished. The point is thus stated by Charles Armitage 
Browne: “A soldier from Florence, famous for its bankers through- 
out Europe, and for its invention of bills of exchange, book-keep- 
ing, and every thing connected with a counting-house, might well 
be ridiculed for his promotion by an Iago in this manner.” H. 

6 Instead of toged the folio’ has tongwed, which is preferred by 
‘some editors as agreeing better with the words, “mere prattle 
without practice.” In Coriolanus, Act ii. sc. 3, note 6, we have 
found toge misprinted tongue. Of course, “the toged consuls ” 
are the civil governors; so called by Iago in opposition to the 
warlike qualifications of which he bas been speaking. There may 
be an allusion to the adage, “Cedant arma toge.” heoric was 
often used for theory. See King Henry V., Acti. sc. 1, note 3. 

He 


Sere eee 


412 OTHELLO, ACT I. 


By debitor and creditor :” this counter-caster, 
He, in good time, must his lieutenant be, 
And I (God bless the mark!) his Moorship’s ancient. 
Rod. By Heaven, I rather would have been his 
hangman. 
Tago. But there’s no remedy; ’tis the curse of 
service : 
Preferment goes by letter and affection, 
Not by the old gradation, where each second 
Stood heir to th’ first. Now, sir, be judge yourself, 
Whether I in any just term am affin’d * 
To love the Moor. 
Rod. I would not follow him, then. 
Tago. O, sir! content you ; 
I allo him to serve my turn upon him: 
We cannot all be masters, nor all masters 
Cannot be truly follow’d. You shall mark 
Many a duteous and knee-crooking knave 
That, doting on his own obsequious bondage, 
Wears out his time, much like’ his master’s ass, 
For nought but provender; and, when he’s old, 
cashier’d : 
Whip me such honest knaves.° Others there are 
Who, trimm’d in forms and visages of duty, 
Keep yet their hearts attending on themselves ; 


7 That is, by a mere accountant, a keeper of debt and credit. 
Iago means that Cassio, though knowing no more of war than men 
of the gown, as distinguished*from men of the sword, has yet out- 
sailed him in military advancement. Again, he calls Cassio “this 
counter-caster,” in allusion to the counters formerly used in reck- 
oning up accounts. — The folio has Christen’d instead of Chris- 
tian ; and also «bless the mark,” for « God bless the mark,’’ in 
the last line of this speech. H. 

8 Whether I stand within any such terms of affinity to the Moor, 
as that I am bound to Jove him. — In the second line above, the 
folio reads, “ And not by old gradation.” H. 

9 Knave is here used for servant, but with a sly mixture of con: 
tempt. The usage was very common. He 


SC. I. THE MOOR OF VENICE. 413 


And, throwing but shows of service on their lords, 
Do well thrive by them, and, when they have lin’d 
Their coats, do themselves homage : 
These fellows have some soul; and such a one 
Do I profess myself. For, sir, 
It is as sure as you are Roderigo, 
Were I the Moor, I would not be Iago: 
In following him, I follow but myself; 
Heaven is my judge, not I for love and duty, 
But seeming so, for my peculiar end: 
For when my outward action doth demonstrate 
The native act and figure of my heart 
In complement extern,’° ’tis not long after 
But I will wear my heart upon my sleeve 
For daws to peck at: I am not what I am. 
Rod. What a full fortune does the thick-lips 
owe,'' 
If he can carry’t thus! 

Lago. Call up her father ; 
Rouse him: make after him, poison his delight, 
Proclaim him in the streets: incense her kinsmen; 
And, though he in a fertile climate dwell, 

Plague him with flies: though that his joy be joy, 


10 That is, when his outward carriage answers to what is with- 
in, or when the thoughts of his heart are shown in external com- 
pleteness. Complement is usually printed compliment, and the 
phrase explained, “outward show of civility.” This does not 
accord with the sense of the passage; which is, that he scorns to 
have the inward and the outward keep touch or hold any acquaint- 
ance with each other, as being the next thing to wearing himself 
wrong side out. H. 

11 So both the quartos : the folio has fall instead of full. The 
meaning is, how fortunate he is, or how strong in fortune, if he can 
hold out against such practice. Similar language occurs in Cym- 
beline: “Our pleasure bis full fortune doth confine.’ And in 
Antony and Cleopatra : «The imperious show of the full-fortun’d 
Cesar.’ — Of course owe is‘used in the old sense of own, or pos- 
sess. H. 


Bo * 


414 OTHELLO, ACT I. 


Yet throw such changes of vexation on’t,’” 
As it may lose some colour. 
Rod. Here is her father’s house: Vl call aloud. 
Iago. Do; with like timorous accent, and dire 
yell, 
As when, by night and negligence,’ the fire 
Is spied in populous cities. “ 
Rod. What ho! Brabantio! signior Brabantio, 
ho! 
Tago. Awake! what ho! Brabantio! thieves ! 
thieves! thieves ! 
Look to your house, your daughter, and your bags! 
Thieves! thieves ! | 


Enter BRABANTIO, above, at a Window. 


Bra. What is the reason of this terrible summons? 
What is the matter there ? 
Rod. Signior, is all your family within? 
Tago. Are your doors lock’d ? 
Bra. : Why? wherefore ask you this? 
Tago. ’Zounds, sir! you’re robb’d;"* for shame, 
put on your gown: 
Your heart is burst, you have lost half your soul; 
Even now, now, very now, an old black ram 
Is tupping your white ewe. Arise, arise ! 
Awake the snorting citizens with the bell, 
Or else the devil will make a grandsire of you: 
Arise, I say. 


12 Thus both the quartos: the folio has chances instead of 


changes. H. 
13 That is, in the time of night and negligence; a very com- 
mon form of expression. — Timorous was sometimes used, as fear- 


ful still is, for that which frightens. Old dictionaries explain it 
‘fearful, horridus, formidolosus.’” Mr, Collier’s second folio 
changes it here into clamorous. it. 

14? Zounds is not in the folio. — Burst, in the next line, is used 
jn the sense of broken. The usage was common. H. 


“toe Seed 


sc. I. 1 - THE MOOR OF VENICE. 415 
Bra. What! have you lost your wits? 
Rod. Most reverend signior, do you know my 

voice ! 


Bra. Not I: What are you? 

Rod. My name is Roderigo. 

Bra. The worser welcome. 
I have charg’d thee not to haunt about my doors : 
In honest plainness thou hast heard me say 
My daughter is not for thee; and now, in madness, 
Being full of supper and distempering draughts, 
Upon malicious bravery dost thou come ‘° 
To start my quiet. 

Rod. Sir, sir, sir,— 

Bra. But thou must needs be sure, 
My spirit and my place have in them power 
To make this bitter to thee. 


Rod. Patience, good sir. 
Bra. What tell’st thou me of robbing? this is 
Venice ; 
My house is not a grange.'° 
Rod. Most grave Brabantio, 


In simple and pure soul I come to you. 

Tago. ’Zounds, sir!"’ you are one of those, that 
will not serve God, if the devil bid you. Because 
we come to do you service, and you think we are 
ruffians, you'll have your daughter cover’d with a 


15 So both the quartos: the folio has knavery instead of bra- 
very. H. 

16 That is, mine is not a lone house) where a robbery might 
easily be committed. Grange is, strictly, the farm of a monas- 
tery ; but, provincially, any lone house or solitary farm is called 
a grange. So in Measure for Measure: “ At the moated grange 
resides this dejected Mariana.” 

17 Here, again, ’Zounds is wanting in the folio. Generally, in- 
deed, all such expressions are disciplined out of that copy 5 prob- 
ably by the Master of the Revels, on account of the statute against 
profane language. H. 


416 . OTHELLO, ACT I. 


Barbary horse; you’ll have your nephews neigh to 
you;'® you'll have coursers for cousins, and gennets 
for germans.'® 

Bra. What profane wretch art thou? 

Iago. I am one, sir, that comes to tell you, your 
daughter and: the Moor are now making the beast 
with two backs. 

Bra. Thou art a villain. 

Lago. You are —a senator. 

Bra. This thou shalt answer: I know thee, Rod- 

erigo. . 

Rod. Sir, I will answer any thing. But I beseech 

you, 
If’t be your pleasure and most wise consent,” 
(As partly, I find, it is,) that your fair daughter, 
At this odd-even and dull watch o’the night,” 
Transported with no worse nor better guard, 
But with a knave of common hire, a gondolier,” 
To the gross clasps of a lascivious Moor, — 
If this be known to you, and your allowance, 
We then have done you bold and saucy wrongs ; 
But if you know not this, my manners tell me 
We have your wrong rebuke. Do not believe, 
That, from the sense of all civility,”* 


18 Nephews here means grandchildren. 

19 A gennet is a Spanish or Barbary horse. 

20 This line, and what follows down to « Straight satisfy your- 
self,” are not in the quarto of 1622. H. 

21 This odd-even appears to mean the interval between twelve 
at night and one in the morning. | 

22 A writer in the Pictorial Shakespeare tells us, “ that the gon- 
doliers are the only conveyers of persons, and of a large propor- 
tion of property, in Venice; that they are thus cognizant of all 
intrigues, and the fittest agents in them, and are under perpetual 
and strong temptation to make profit of the secrets of society. 
Brabantio might well be in horror at his daughter having, in ‘the 
dull watch o’the night, no worse nor better guard.’ — H. 

23 That is, departing from the sense of all civility. 


— ! 
| se 


SC. I. THE MOOR OF VENICE. 417 


I thus would play and trifle with your reverence: 
Your daughter, if you have not given her leave, 
I say again, hath made a gross revolt ; 
Tying her duty, beauty, wit, and fortunes, 
In an extravagant and wheeling stranger,”* 
Of here and every where. Straight satisfy yourself: 
If she be in her chamber or your hotse, 
Let loose on me the justice of the state 
For thus deluding you. 
Bra . Strike on the tinder, ho! 
Give me a taper !—eall up all-my people !— 
This accident is not unlike my dream ;”° 
Belief of it oppresses me already. — 
: Light, I say! light! [ Exit, from above. 
Tago. Farewell ; for I must leave yous ~ 
It seems not meet, nor wholesome to my place, 
To be produe’d (as, if I stay, I shall) 
Against the Moor: For, I do know, the state— 
However this may gall him with some check — 
Cannot with safety cast him ; for he’s embark’d 
With such loud reason to the Cyprus’ wars, 
(Which even now stand in act,) that, for their souls, 
Another of his fathom they have none, 
To lead their business: in which regard, 
Though I do hate him as I do hell pains, 
Yet, for necessity of present life, 
I must show out a flag and sign of love, 
Which is indeed but sign. ‘That you shall surely 
find him, , 


24 Extravagant is here again used in its Latin sense, for wan- 
dering. Thus in Hamlet: “ The extravagant and erring spirit.” 
Sir Henry Wotton thus uses it: “ These two accidents, precisely 
true, and known to few, I have reported as not altogether extrave 
agant from my purpose.” — Jn is here used for on, a common sub- 
stitution in ancient phraseology. 

25 The careful old senator, being caught careless, transfers his 
caution to his dreaming power at least. —CoLERIDGE, H. 

‘ 27 


418 OTHELLO, ' {err 


Lead to the Sagittary the rais’d search ; °° 
And there will I be with him. So, farewell. [Ezzt. 


Enter Brapantio, and Servants with Torches. 


Bra. It is too true an evil: gone she 1s; 
And what’s fo come of my despised time, 
Is nought but* bitterness. — Now, Roderigo, 
Where didst thou see her 1—O, unhappy girl! — 
With the Moor, say’st thou 1— Who would be a 
father ? — 
How didst thou know ’twas she ?1—O, she deceives 
me”? | 
Past thought !— What said she to you 1 — Get more 
tapers ! 
Raise all my kindred !— Are they married, think 
you? 
Rod. Truly, I think they are. 7 
Bra. O Heaven !— How got she out ? — O, trea- 
son of the blood ! — 
Fathers, from hence trust not your daughters’ minds 
By what you see them act.—Is there not charms, 
By which the property of youth and maidhood — 
May be abus’d? Have you not read, Roderigo, 
Of some such thing ? 
Rod. Yes, sir; I have indeed. 
Bra. Call up my brother. — O, that you had had 
her !— 
Some one way, some another.— Do you know 
Where we may apprehend her and the Moor? 


26 The Sagittary was the residence at the arsenal of the com- 
manding officers of the army and navy of Venice. It is said that 
the figure of an archer, with his bow drawn, over the gates, still 
indicates the place; and some think the Poet had himself seen it. 

H. 

27 Thus the folio; the quartos, “thou deceiv’st me.” H. 


sc. ID. THE MOOR OF VENICE. 419 


Rod. 1 think I can discover him, if you please 
To get good guard, and go along with me. | 

Bra. ’Pray you, lead on. At every house Ill 

call ; 
I may command at most.”* — Get weapons, ho! 
And raise some special officers of night. — 
On, good Roderigo ; —I’ll deserve your pains. 
[ Exeunt 


C2 


SCENE II. The Same. Another Street. 


Enter OTHELLO, Taco, and Attendants. 


Tago. Though in the trade of war I have slain men, 
Yet do I hold it very stuff o’the conscience,’ 

To do no contriv’d murder: I Jack iniquity 

Sometimes, to do me service. Nine or ten times 

I had thought to have yerk’d him here under the 
ribs. 

Oth. ’Tis better as it is. 

Lago. Nay, but he prated, 
And spoke such scurvy and provoking terms 
Against your honour,’ 

That, with the little godliness I have, 

I did full hard forbear him. But, I pray, sir,® 
Are you fast married? for, be sure of this, 
That the magnifico is much belov’d ; 

And hath, in his effect, a voice potential 


28 That is, «I may command at most of the houses.” — The 


folio reads “officers of might ;’’ probably a misprint. H. 
1 That is, as we should say, a point of conscience, or matter of 
conscience. H. 


2 Of course Iago is speaking of Roderigo, and pretending to 
relate what he has done and said against Othello. H. 

3 Thus the quartos: the folio reads, “I pray you, sir.” And 
in the next line the folio has, Be assur’d instead of, For be sure, 
— The chief men of Venice are called magnifici, or magnificues, 

H 


420 OTHELLO, ACT I 


As double as the Duke’s:* he will divorce you ; 
Or put upon you what restraint, or grievance, 
The law (with all his might to enforce it on) 
Will give him cable. 

Oth. Let him do his spite: 
My services, which I have done the signiory, 
Shall out-tongue his complaints. "Tis yet to know, 
(Which, when I know that boasting is an honour, 
I shall promulgate,) I fetch my life and being 
From men of royal siege ;° and my demerits 
May speak, unbonneted, to as proud a fortune » 
As this that I have reach’d:*® For know, Iago, 
But that I love the gentle Desdemona, 
I would not my unhoused’ free condition 
Put into circumscription and confine 
For the sea’s worth.® © But, look! what lights come 

yond’? 

Tago. These are the raised father and his friends: 
You were best go in. 

Oth. Not I: I must be found ; 
My parts, my title, and my perfect soul, 
Shall manifest me rightly. Is it they? 

Iago. By Janus, I think no. - 


4 That is, as mighty, as powerful ; as double means as strong. 
as forcible. 

5 That is, men who have sat on kingly thrones. Siege was 
ofien thus used for seat. The quartos read, “ men of royal height.” 

H. 

6 Demerit is the same in Shakespeare as merit. Mereo and 
demereo had the same meaning in the Roman language. Mr. Fu- 
seli explains this passage as follows: “1 am his equal or superior 
in rank; and were it not so, such are my merits, that unbonneted, 
without the addition of patrician or senatorial dignity, they may 
speak to as proud a fortune,” &c. At Venice the bonnet, as well 
as the toge, is a badge of aristocratic honours to this day. 

7 That is, unsettled, free from domestic cares. 

8 Pliny, the naturalist, has a chapter on the riches of the sea. 
The expression seems to have been proverbial. 


SGv Il. ?* THE MOOR OF VENICE. 4] 


Enter Cassio, and certain Officers with Torches. 


* Oth. The servants of the Duke, and my lieu 
tenant. — 

The goodness of the night upon you, friends! 

What is the news? 

Cas. The Duke does greet you, general ; 
And he requires your haste, post-haste appearance, 
Even on the instant. 

Oth. What is the matter, think you? 

Cas. Something from Cyprus, as I may divine. 
It is a business of some heat: the galleys 
Have sent a dozen sequent messengers 
This very night at one another’s heels ; 

And many of the consuls,® rais’d, and met, 

Are at the Duke’s already. You have been hotly 
eall’d for ; 

When, being not at your lodging to be found, 

The senate hath sent about three several quests, 

To search you out. 


Oth. "Tis well I am found by you. 
I will but spend a word here in the house, 
And go with you. [ Exit. 
Cas. Ancient, what makes he here? 


Tago. ’Faith, he to-night hath boarded a land 
carack : 7° 
If it prove lawful prize, he’s made for ever. 
Cas. ¥ do not understand. 
Lago. He’s married. 


Cas. To whom? 


® Consuls means the same here as the “ toged consuls,” or men 
of the-gown, mentioned in note 6 of.the preceding scene ; that is, 
the senators. H. 

10 A carack, or carrick, was a ship of great burthen, a Spanisk 
galleon ; so named from carico, a lading, or freight. 


ty aa 36 


422 OTHELLO, ACTSL 


Re-enter OTHELLO. 


Tago. Marry, to— Come, captain, will you go? ® 
Oth. Have with you. 
Cas. Here comes another troop to seek for you. 


_ Enter Brapantio, Roperico, and Officers, with 
Torches and Weapons. 


Jago. It is Brabantio. — General, be advis’d: 
He comes to bad intent. 


Oth. Holla! stand there ! 
Rod. Signior, it is the Moor. 
Bra. Down with him, thief! 


[ They draw on both sides. 
Tago. You, Roderigo! come, sir, I am for you. 
Oth. Keep up your bright swords, for the dew 
will rust them." 
Good signior, you helene more command with years, 
Than with your weapons. 
Bra. O, thou foul thief! where hast thou stow’d 
my daughter? | 
Damn’d as thou art, thou hast enchanted her: 
For I'll refer me to all things of sense, 
If she in chains of magic were not bound, 


11 Tf we mistake not, there is a sort of playful, good-humoured 
irony expressed in the very rhythm of this line. ‘Throughout this 
scene, Othello appears at all points «“ the noble nature, whose solid 
virtue the shot of accident, nor dart of chance, could neither graze, 
nor pierce :” his calmness and intrepidity of soul, his heroic mod- 
esty, his manly frankness and considerative firmness of disposition 
are all displayed at great advantage, marking his character as one 
made up of the most solid and gentle qualities. Though he has 
nowise wronged Brabantio, he knows that he seems to have done 
so: his feelings therefore take the old man’s part, and he respects 
his age and sorrow too much to resent his violence ; hears his 
charges with a kind of reverential defiance, and answers them as 
knowing them false, yet sensible of their reasonableness, and hon 
ouring him the more for making them, H. 


SE. mm '° THE MOOR OF VENICE. 423 


Whether a maid so tender, fair, and happy ; 
So opposite to marriage, that she shunn’d 
The wealthy curled darlings of our nation ; 
Would ever have, t’incur a general mock, 
Run from her guardage to the sooty bosom 
Of such a thing as thou ; to fear, not to delight. 
Judge me the world, if ’tis not gross in sense,'® 
That thou hast practis’d ‘on her with foul charms ; 
Abus’d her delicate youth with drugs or minerals, 
That waken motion.’* —Ill have’t disputed on 5 
Tis probable, and palpable to thinking. 
I therefore apprehend and do attach thee, 
For an abuser of the world, a practiser 
Of arts inhibited and out of warrant. — 
Lay hold upon him ; if he do resist, 
Subdue him at his peril. 
OLR. Hold your hands, 
Both you of my inclining, and the rest: 
Were it my cue to fight, I should have known it 
Without a prompter.— Where will you that I go 
To answer this your charge ? 

Bra. To prison ; till fit time 


12 So both the quartos: the folio has dearling instead of dar- 
lings. Perhaps it should be dearlings.— In Shakespeare’s time 
it was the fashion for lusty gallants to wear “a curled bush of 
frizzied hair.’ In Lear, Edgar, when he was “proud in heart 
and mind,” curled his hair. The Poet has other allusions to the 


custom among people of rank and fashion. H. 
13 This and the next five lines are not in the quarto of 1622. 
H 


14 Theold copies read, “ That weaken motion.” The emenda- 
tion is Hanmer’s. Motion is elsewhere used by our Poet pre- 
cisely in the sense required here. So in Measure for Measure: 
« One who never feels the wanton stings and motions of the sense.” 
And in a subsequent scene of this.play : ‘¢ But we have reason, to 
cool our raging motions, our carnal stings, our unbitted lusts.” To 
waken is to incite, to stir up. We have in the present play, 
“ waken'd wrath.” 


424 OTHELLO, ACT I. 


Of law, and course of direct session, 
Call thee to answer. 

Oth. What if I do obey? 
How may the Duke be therewith satisfied, 
Whose messengers are here about my side, 
Upon some present business of the state, 
To bring me to him ? 

Off. "Tis true, most worthy signior: 
The Duke’s in council ; and your noble self, 

I am sure, is sent for. 

Bra. How! the Duke in council! 
In this time of the night !— Bring him away. 
Mine’s not an idle cause: the Duke himself, 

Or any of my brothers of the state, 
Cannot but feel this wrong, as ’twere their own 3 
For if such actions may have passage free, 
Bond-slaves and pagans shall our statesmen be.’® 

| Exeunt. 


- 


SCENE III. The Same. <A Council-Chamber 


The Duke, and Senators, sitting at a Table; Of: 
Jicers attending. 


Duke. There is no composition in these news,’ 
That gives them credit. 

1 Sen. Indeed, they. are disproportion’d : 
My letters say, a hundred and seven galleys. ° 

Duke. And mine, a hundred and forty.’ 


15 This passage has been misunderstood. Pagan was a word 
of contempt; and the reason will appear from its etymology: 
« Paganus, villanus vel incultus. Et derivatur a pagus, quod est 
villa. Et quicunque habitat in villa est paganus. Preterea qui- 
cunque est extra civitatem Dei, i. e., ecclesiam, dicitur paganus. 
Anglice, a paynim.” — Ortus Vocabulorum, 1528. 

1 Composition for consistency. It has been before observed 
hat news was considered of the plural number, 

2 The folio omits and in this speech. H. 


SG. lite) - THE MOOR OF VENICE. 425 


2 Sen. And mine, two hundred: 
But though they jump not on a just account, 
(As in these cases, where the aim reports,° 
’Tis oft with difference,) yet do they all confirm 
A Turkish fleet, and bearing up to Cyprus. 
Duke. Nay, it is possible enough to judgment: 
I do not so secure me in the error, 
But the main article I do approve 
In fearful sense. 
Sail. [Within.] What ho! what ho! what ho! 


Enter an Officer, with a Sailor. 


Off. A messenger from the galleys. 
Duke. Now! the business? 
Sail. The Turkish preparation makes for Rhodes : 
So was I bid report here to the state, 
By signior Angelo. 
Duke. How say you by this change ? 
1 Sen. ' This cannot be, 
By no assay of reason:* “tis a pageant, 
To keep us in false gaze. When we consider 
The importancy of Cyprus to the ‘Turk; 
And let ourselves again but understand, 
That, as it more concerns the Turk than Rhodes, 
So may he with more facile question bear it,” 
For that it stands not in such warlike brace,° 


3 So the folio; the quartos, “they aim reports.” The mean 
ing is the same either way; only in the one case aim is a noun, 
in the other a verb. The Poet elsewhere uses aim in the sense 
of guess or conjecture. Thus in The Two Gentlemen of Verona: 
« Fearing lest my jealous aim might err.” And in Julius Caesar; 
« What you would work me to, I have some aim.” H. 

4 That is, by no trial or test of reason. 

5 That he may carry it with less dispute or opposition. 

6 That is, in such state of defence. To arm was called to brace 
onthe armour. The seven following lines are not in the quarto 


of 1622. 
36 * 


A426 OTHELLO, ACT I. 


But altogether lacks th’ abilities 
That Rhodes is dress’d in ; —if we make thought of 
this, . 

We must not think the Turk is so unskilful, 

To leave that latest which concerns him first, 

Neglecting an attempt of ease and gain, 

To wake, and wage, a danger profitless.’ 
Duke. Nay, in all confidence, he’s not for eee 
Off. Here is more news. 


Enter a Messenger. 


Mes. The Ottomites, reverend and gracious, 
Steering with due course toward the isle of Rhodes, 
Have there injointed with an after fleet.® 

1 Sen. Ay, so I thought.— How many, as you 

guess 1 

Mes. Of thirty sail: and now do they re-stem 

Their backward course, bearing with frank appear- 
ance 

Their purposes toward Cyprus.—Signior Montano, 
Your trusty and most valiant servitor, 
With his free duty recommends you thus, 
And prays you to believe him. 

Duke. ’Tis certain, then, for Cyprus. — 
Marcus Luccicos, is he not in town? 

1 Sen. He’s now in Florence. 

Duke. Write from us to him; post, post-haste, 

despatch. 


7 To wage is to undertake. “To wage law (in the common 
acceptation) seems to be to follow, to urge, drive on, or prose- 
cute the law or Jaw-suits ; as to wage war is preeliart, bellare, to 
drive on the war, to fight in battels as warriors do.’’ — Blount’s 
Glossography. , 

8 So the quarto of 1622: the other old copies insert them after 
injointed ; thus spoiling the metre without helping the sense. 

H. 


SC. III. - “THE MOOR OF VENICE. 427 


1 Sen. Here comes Brabantio, and the valiant 


Moor. 


Enter BRABANTIO, OTHELLO, IAco, RopEriGo, and 
Officers. 
Duke. Valiant Othello, we must straight employ 
you 
Against the general enemy Ottoman.’ — 
[To Brapan.] I did not see you; welcome, gentle 
signior : 
We lack’d your counsel and your help to-night. 
Bra. So did I yours. Good your grace, pardon 
me ; : 
Neither my place, nor aught I heard of business, 
Hath rais’d me from my bed; nor doth the general 
care 
Take hold on me; for my particular grief 
Is of so flood-gate and o’erbearing nature, 
That it engluts and swallows other sorrows, 
And it is still itself. 


Duke. Why, what’s the matter? 
Bra. My daughter! O, my daughter ! 

Sen. Dead ? 

Bra. Ay, to me: 


She is abus’d, stol’n from me, and corrupted 
By spells, and medicines bought of mountebanks : 
For nature so preposterously to err, 
(Being not deficient, blind, or lame of sense,) 
Sans witchcraft could not. 

Duke. Whoe’er he be, that in this foul proceeding 


9 It was part of the policy of the Venetian state to employ 
strangers, and even Moors, in their wars. “ By Jande they are 
served of straungers, both for generals, for capitaines, and for all 
other men of warre, because theyr lawe permitteth not any Vene- 
tian to be capitaine over an armie by lande ; fearing, I thinke, Cee~ 
sar’s example.” — T'homas’s History of Italye. 


428 OTHELLO, ACT I. 


Hath thus beguil’d your daughter of herself, 

And you of her, the bloody book of law? 

You shall yourself read in the bitter letter, 

After your own sense; yea, though our proper son 

Stood in your action. 

Bra. Humbly I thank your grace. 
Here is the man, this Moor; whom now, it seems, 
Your special mandate, for the state affairs, 

Hath hither brought. z 
Duke and Sen. We are very sorry for’t. 
Duke. [To OrHELLO.] What, in your own part, 

can you say to this? 

Bra. Nothing, but this ‘is so. 

Oth. Most potent, grave, and reverend signiors. 
My very noble and approv’d good masters, 

That I have ta’en away this old man’s daughter, 

It is most true; true, I have married her: 

The very head and front of my offending 

Hath this extent, no more. Rude am I in my speech, 

And little bless’d with the soft phrase of peace ;” 

For, since these arms of mine had seven years’ pith, 

Till now, some nine moons wasted, they have us’d 

Their dearest action in the tented field ; 

And little of this great world can I speak, 

More than pertains to feats of broil and battle; 

And therefore little shall I grace my cause, 

In speaking for myself. Yet, by your gracious pa- 

tience, 

I will a round unvarnish’d tale deliver 

Of my whole course of love ; what drugs, what 

charms, 


10 By the Venetian law the giving love-potions was highly crims 
inal, as appears in the Code Della Promission del Malefico. 

1 So the folio: both the quartos read, «the sed phrase of 
peace.” ; H. 


SC. III. THE MOOR OF VENICE. . 429 


What conjuration, and what mighty magic 
(For such proceeding I am charg’d withal) 
I won his daughter with."” 

Bra. A maiden never bold; 
Of spirit so still and quiet, that her motion 
Blush’d at herself ;'* and she —in spite of nature, 
Of years, of country, credit, every thing — 

To fall in love with what she fear’d to look on! 
It is a judgment maim’d, and most imperfect, 
That will confess perfection so could err 

Against all rules of nature ; and must be driven 
To find out practices of cunning hell, 

Why this should be. I therefore vouch again, 
That with some mixtures powerful o’er the blood, 
Or with some dram conjur’d to this effect, 

He wrought upon her. 

Duke. To youch this, is no proof: 
Without more certain and more overt test, 

These are thin habits, and poor likelihoods 
Of modern seeming, you prefer against him." 

1 Sen. But, Othello, speak : 

Did you by indirect and forced courses 

Subdue and poison this young maid’s affections 5 
Or came it by request, and such fair question 
As soul to soul affordeth ? 


12 The word with, supplied in the second folio, is wanting in 
the other old copies. 

13 Shakespeare, like other writers of ‘his age, frequently uses 
the personal instead of the neutral pronoun. 

14 We here follow the quarto of 1630; with which that of 1622 
agrees, except that it has youth instead of vouch. The folio makes 
the whole speech a continuation of Brabantio’s ; bas wider instead 
of certain, over instead of overt, “ Than these,” for “ These are,” 
and «do prefer,” for “ you prefer.” — Seeming is printed seem- 
ings in the quartos. — Modern is here used in the sense of common 
or vulgar ; as in the phrase, “ full of wise saws and modern is 
stances.” H. 


9h toe le 


439 OTHELLO, ACT I. 


Oth. I do beseech you, 
Send for the lady to the Sagittary, 
And let her speak of me before her father: 
If you do find me foul in her report, 
The trust, the office, I do hold of you, » 
Not only take away, but let your sentence 
Even fall upon my life. 


Duke. Fetch Desdemona hither. 
Oth. Ancient, conduct them ; you best know the 
place. — [Exeunt Taco and Attendants. 


And, till she come, as truly as to Heaven 
1 do confess the vices of my blood, 
So justly to your grave ears I’ll present 
How I did thrive in this fair lady’s love, 
And she in mine. 

Duke. Say it, Othello. 

Oth. Her father lov’d me; oft invited me; 
Still question’d me the story of my life, 
I'rom year to year; the battles, sieges, fortunes, 
That I have pass’d. 
{ ran it through, even from my boyish days, 
To th’ very moment that he bade me tell it. 
Wherein I spake of most disastrous chances, 
Of moving accidents, by flood and field ; 
Of hair-breadth scapes i’the imminent deadly 

breach ; 

Of being taken by the insolent foe, 
And sold to slavery ; of my redemption thence, 
And portance in my travel’s history :1° 


'® Thus the quarto of 1630: that of 1622 reads, « And with it 
all my travel’s history ;” the folio, « And portance in my travel- 
ler’s history.” Portance is carriage or deportment. So in Corio- 
Janus, Act ii. sc. 3: “ But your loves, thinking upon his services, 
took from you the apprehension of his present portance.” And in 
The Faerie Queene, Book ii., can. 3: 


“A goodly Ladie clad in hunters weed, 


Si ie: ** THE MOOR OF VENICE. 431 


Wherein of antres vast,'® and deserts idle, 

Rough quarries, rocks, and hills whose heads touch 
heaven, 

It was my hint to speak, such was the process 3 

And of the cannibals that each other eat, 

The anthropophagi, and men whose heads 

Do grow beneath their shoulders.'’ This to hear, 

Would Desdemona seriously incline : 

But still the house affairs would draw her thence; 

Which ever as she could with haste despatch, 

She’d come again, and with a greedy ear 

Devour up my discourse. Which I observing, 

Took once a pliant hour ; and found good means 

To draw from her a prayer of earnest heart, 

That I would all my pilgrimage dilate, 

Whereof by parcels she had something heard, 


That seemed to be a woman of great worth, 
And by ber stately portance borne of heavenly birth.” 
H. 


16 That is, caverns; from antrum, Lat. Warburton observes 
that Rymer ridicules this whole circumstance ; and Shaftesbury 
obliquely sneers at it. « Whoever,” says Johnson, ‘ridicules this 
account of the progress of love, shows his ignorance not only of 
history, but of nature and mannefs. It is no wonder that, in any 
age, or in any nation, a lady, recluse, timorous, and delicate, 
should desire to bear of events and scenes which she could never 
see, and should admire the man who had endured dangers, and 
performed actions, which, however great, were magnified by her 
timidity.” 

17 Nothing excited more universal attention than the account 
brought by Sir Walter Raleigh, on his return from his celebrated 
voyage to Guiana in 1595, of the cannibals, amazons.and especial- 
ly of the nation, “ whose heads do grow beneath their shoulders.” 
A short extract of the more wonderful passages was also published 
in Latin and in several other languages in 1599, adorned with copper- 
plates, representing these cannibals, amazons, and headless people, 
&c. These extraordinary reports’ were universally credited; and 
Othello therefore assumes no other character but what was very 
common among the celebrated commanders of the Poet’s time — 
The folio omits Do, and reads, “ These things to hear.” 


432 OTHELLO, ACT I. 


But not intentively."* I did consent ; 

And often did beguile her of her tears, 

When I did speak of some distressful stroke 

That my youth suffer’d. My story being done, 

She gave me for my pains a world of sighs:” 

She swore,*’ —in faith, "twas strange, ’twas passing 
strange ; 

"Twas pitiful, twas wondrous pitiful: — 

She wish’d she had not heard it ; yet she wish’d 

That Heaven had made her such a man:*’ she 
thank’d me; 

And bade me, if I had a friend that lov’d her, 

I should but teach him how to, tell my story, 

And that would woo her. Upon this hint, I spake: 

She lov’d me for the dangers I had pass’d ; 

And I lov’d her, that she did pity them. 

This only is the witchcraft I have us’d: 

Here comes the lady, let her witness it. 


Enter Despemona, Taco, and Attendants. 


Duke. 1 think this tale would win my daughter 
too. 
Good Brabantio, 
Take up this mangled matter at the best: 


18 Intention and attention were once synonymous. “ Intentive, 
which listeneth well and is earnestly bent to a thing,” says Bullo- 
kar, in bis Expositor, 1616. 

19 Thus both the quartos: the folio has kisses instead of sighs. 

H. 

20 To aver upon faith or honour was considered swearing. 

21 A question has lately been raised whether the meaning here 
is, that Desdemona wished such a man had been made for her, or 
that she herself had been made such a man; and several have 
insisted on the latter, lest the lady’s delicacy should be impeached. 
Ter delicacy, we hope, stands in need of no such critical attorney- 
ship. Othello was indeed just such a man as she wanted ; and her 
letting him understand this, was doubtless part of the hint whereon 
he spoke. : H. 


i ll 


sc.-lik: ** THE MOOR OF VENICE. 433 


Men do their broken weapons rather use, 
‘Than their bare hands. 

Bra. I pray you, hear her speak: 
If she confess that she was half the wooer, 
Destruction on my head, if my bad blame 
Light on the man !— Come hither, gentle mistress: 
Do you perceive in all this noble company, 

Where most you owe obedience 2? 

Des. My noble father, 

I do perceive here a divided duty. 

To you I am bound for life and education ; 

My life and education both do learn me 

How to respect you; you are the lord of duty, 

I am hitherto your daughter: but here’s my husband; 
And so much duty as my mother show’d 

To you, preferring you before her father, 

So much I challenge that I may profess , 

Due to the Moor, my lord. 

Bra. God be with you! —I have done. —~ 
Please it your grace, on to the state affairs : 

I had rather to adopt a child, than get it. — 
Come hither, Moor: 

I here do give thee that with all my heart, 
Which, but thou hast already, with all my heart 
I would keep from thee.-- For your sake, jewel, 
I am glad at soul I have no other child ; 

For thy escape would teach me tyranny, 

To hang clogs on them.—I have done, my lord. 

Duke. Let me speak like yourself;*? and lay a 

sentence, 
Which, as a grise, or step, may help these lovers 


22 That is, let me speak as yourself would speak, were you not 
too much heated with passion. 


VOL. X. 37 28 


434 OTHELLO, i ye 


Into-your favour.”® 
When remedies are past, the griefs are ended ** 


By seeing the worst, which late on hopes depended. 


To mourn a mischief that is past and gone, 
Is the next way to draw more mischief on. 
What cannot be preserv’d when fortune takes, 
Patience her injury a mockery makes. 
The robb’d, that smiles, steals something from the 
thief 5 

He robs himself, that spends a bootless grief. 

Bra. So let the Turk of Cyprus us beguile: 
We lose it not, so long as we can smile. 
He bears the’ sentence well, that nothing bears 
But the free comfort which from thence he hears; 
But he bears both the sentence and the sorrow, 
That, to pay grief, must of poor patience borrow. 
These sentences, to sugar, or to gall, 
Being strong on both sides, are equivocal : 
But words are words; I never yet did hear, 
That the bruis’d heart was pierced through the ear 
Beseech you, now to the affairs of state.” 


Duke. The Turk with a most mighty preparation | 


makes for Cyprus.— Othello, the fortitude of the 


23 Grise or greese is a step; from grés, French. — The words, 
«Into your favour,” are not in the folio. Both quartos have them. 
— In the fourth line afier, the folio has “mew mischief.” H. 

24 This is expressed in a common proverbial form in Loyve’s La- 
bour’s Lost: “ Past cure is stil] past care.” 

25 Thus read both the quartos; the folio, “ I humbly beseech 
you, proceed to th’ affairs of state.” — The meaning of the fore- 
going line is, that the wounded heart was healed with words ; 
pierced being used simply in the sense of reached or penetrated. 
So in The Faerie Queene, Book vi., can. 9, stan. 26: 


« Whyl’st thus he talkt, the Knight with greedy eare 
Hong still upon his melting mouth attent ; 
Whose sensefull words empierst his hart so neare, 
That he was wrapt with double ravishment.” H. 


SC! 111. '” THE MOOR OF VENICE. 435 


place is best known to you; and though we have 

there a substitute of most allowed sufficiency, yet 

Opinion, a sovereign mistress of effects, throws a 

more safer voice on you: you must therefore be 

content to slubber the gloss of your new fortunes 

with this more stubborn and boisterous expedition. 
Oth. The tyrant custom, most grave senators, 

Hath made the flinty and steel couch of war 

My thrice-driven bed of down:** I do agnize 

A natural and prompt alacrity, 

I find in hardness; and do undertake 

These present wars against the Ottomites. 

Most humbly, therefore, bending to your state, 

I crave fit disposition for my wife ; 

Due reference of place, and exhibition, 

With such accommodation, and besort,”’ 

As levels with her breeding. 


Dike. If you please, 
Be’t at her father’s.”® 
Bra. I’]l not have it so. 
Oth. Nor I. 
Des. Nor I; I would not there reside, 


To put my father in impatient thoughts, 
By being in his eye. Most gracious Duke, 
To my unfolding lend your prosperous ear ;*° 


26 A driven bed is a bed for which the feathers have been se- 
lected by driving with a fan, which separates the light from the 
heavy. — To agnize is to acknowledge, confess, or avow, ‘Thus in 
a Summarie Report relative to Mary Quéen of Scots, 186: « A 
repentant convert agnizing her Majesty’s great mercie.” 

27 Besort is attendance or companionship. — Exhibition is al- 
lowance or provision; See Cymbeline, Act i. se. 7, note 12. 


H. 
28 The folio omits the words, “If you please,” and reads, 
“ Why, at her father’s.” H. 


29 That is, your propitious ear. The quartos read, “lend a 
gracious ear,” thus repeating a word from the preceding line. 
H 


436 | OTHELLO, AGT 44 


And let me find a charter in your voice, 
IT’ assist my sitnpleness. 

Duke. What would you, Desdemona ? 

Des. That I did love’the Moor to live with him,, 
My downright violence and storm of fortunes Ais 
May trumpet to the world: my heart’s subdued 
Even to the very quality of my lord: 

I saw Othello’s visage in his mind 3 

And to his honours, and his valiant parts, 

Did I my soul and fortunes consecrate. 

So that, dear lords, if I be left behind, 

A moth of peace, and he go to the war, 

The rites for which I love him are bereft me, 

And I a heavy interim shall support 

By his dear absence.*! Let me go with him. 
Oth. Your voices, lords: ’beseech you,*let hee 

will 

Have a free way. 

Vouch with me, Heaven, I therefore beg it not, 

To please the palate of my appetite ; 

Nor to comply with heat (the young affects 


In me defunct) and proper satisfaction a 


30 Tus the folio and the quarto of 1630: the quarto of 1622 
has scorn instead of storm. Scorn will not cohere with violence, 
unless by making it express a quality of Desdemona herself, not 
of her fortunes; the sense in that case being, “my downright 
violence of behaviour, and scorn of fortune.” She evidently 
means the violence and storm of fortunes which she has braved or 
encountered in marrying the Moor, and not any thing of a violent 
or scornful temper in berself. This hardly need be said, but that 
Mr. Dyce is very confident that scorn is right. H. 

3 We have repeatedly seen that dear, in its original sense, 
was an epithet of any thing that excited intense feeling, whether 
of pleasure or of pain. See Hamlet, Act i. sc. 2, note 24. 

H. 

32 This passage has caused a vast deal of discussion, and the 
mass of conjectural criticism accumulated on it is enough to strike 
one with dismay. The old copies give it thus, precisely: 


3 


SC. III. THE MOOR OF VENICE. 437 


But to be free and bounteous to her mind: 

And Heaven defend your good souls, that you think 
I will your serious and great business scant, 

For she is with me.*® No; when light-wing’d toys 
Of feather’d Cupid foil with wanton dulness 

My speculative and active instruments,** 

That my disports corrupt and taint my business, 
Let housewives make a skillet of my helm, 

And all indign and base adversities 

Make head against my reputation ! 

Duke. Be it as you shall privately determine, 
Either for her stay, or going. ‘Th’ affair cries, haste, 
And speed must answer it: you must hence to-night. 

Des. To-night, my lord ?* 


«Nor to comply with heat the young affects 
In my defunct, and proper satisfaction.” 


The change of my into me was proposed by Upton. There can 
be no rational doubt about accepting it, as it makes the sense of 
the whole passage both natural and clear. Of course young affects 
means the affections or passions of youth. Affects was often so 
used. Heat here means exactly the same as young uffects. Proper 
is used for my own, one of its original Latin senses. So that 
the meaning may be given thus: Nor to indulge the passions of 
youth, (which in me have become extinct ,) and procure my own 
personal satisfaction. That it was so understood in the Poet’s 
time, is all but certain from a passage, evidently written in imita- 
tion of it, in Massinger’s Bondman: 


« Let me wear 
Your colours, lady; and, though youthful heats, 
That look no further than your outward form, 
Are long since buried in me ; while I live, 
I am a constant lover of your mind.” H. 


33 That is, because she is with me. For was often used thus. 
The folio has When instead of For.—“ Heaven defend your 
good souls, that you think,” is the old language for, «« Heaven 
defend your good souls from thinking.” H. 

34 Thus the quartos : the folio has seel instead of foil, offic’d for 
active, and instrument for instruments. Also, in the last line of 
the speech the folio has estimation instead of reputation, which is 
the reading of both the quartos. H. 

35 This speech and the next are in both the quartos, but not in 


od * 


Wied Sida Aaa 
tle 


438 OTHELLO, | ACT I. 
Duke. This night. 
Oth. With all my heart. 


Duke. At nine i’the morning here we’ll meet again. 
Othello, leave some officer behind, 
And he shall our commission bring to you ; 
With such things else of quality and respect, 
As doth import you. 
Oth. Please your grace, my ancient 3 
A man he is of honesty and trust: 
To his conveyance I assign my wife, 
With what else needful your good grace shall think 
To be sent after me. 
Duke. Let it be so. — 
Good night to every one.— [Zo Brasan.] And, 
noble signior, 
If virtue no delighted beauty lack,*° 
Your son-in-law is far more fair than black. 
1 Sen. Adieu, brave Moor! use Desdemona well. 
Bra. Look to her, Moor, if thou hast eyes to 
see :°7 
She has deceiv’d her father, and may thee. 
[Exeunt the Duxe, Senators, Officers, &§c. 
Oth. My life upon her faith.** — Honest Iago, 
My Desdemona must I leave to thee 5 
I pr’ythee, let thy wife attend on her; 


the folio. In the preceding speech, also, the folio has away in- 
stead of hence, the words, “ you must away to-night,” being ase 


signed to a Senator. H. 
36 Delighted for delighting, or delightful. See Measure for 

Measure, Act ili. sc. 1, note 20. H. 
37 So the folio, and the quarto of 1630: the other quarto reads 

“have a quick eye to see.” H. 


38 Tn real life, how do we look back to little speeches as pre- 
sentimental of, or contrasted with, an affecting event! Even so 
Shakespeare, as secure of being read over and over, of becoming 
a family friend, provides this passage for his readers, and leaves 
it to them.— CoLERIDGE. H. 


$6.'11 THE MOOR UF VENICE. 439 


And bring them after in the best advantage.*® — 
Come, Desdemona; I have but an hour 

Of love, of worldly matters and direction, 

To spend with thee: we must obey the time. 
[Exeunt OTHELLO and DESDEMONA. 
Rod. Vago. 7 

Tago. What say’st thou, noble heart? 

Rod. What will I do, think’st thou? 

Iago. Why, go to bed, and sleep. 

Rod. 1 will incontinently drown myself. 

Tago. Well, if thou dost, I shall never love thee 
after it. Why, thou silly gentleman! 

Rod. It is silliness to live, when to live is a tor- 
ment; and then have we a prescription to die, when 
death is our physician. 

Tago. O villainous! I have look’d upon the world 
for four times seven years;*° and since I could 
distinguish betwixt a benefit and an injury, I never 
found a man that knew how to love himself. Ere 


39 That is, fairest opportunity. 

49 This clearly ascertains the age of Iago to be twenty-eight 
years; though the general impression of him is that of a much 
older man. The Poet, we doubt not, had a wise purpose in mak- 
ing him so young, as it infers his virulence of mind to be some- 
thing innate and spontaneous, and not superinduced by harsh ex- 
perience of the world. Mr. Verplanck remarks upon it thas: “ An 
old soldier of acknowledged merit, who, afler years of service, 
sees a young man like Cassio placed over his head, has not a little 
to plead in justification of deep resentment, and in excuse, though 
not in defence, of his revenge: such a man may well brood over 
imaginary wrongs. The caustic sarcasm ‘and contemptuous esti- 
mate of mankind are at least pardonable in a soured and disap- 
pointed veterau. But in a young man the revenge is more purely 
gratuitous, the hypocrisy, the knowledge, the dexterous manage- 
ment of the worst and weakest parts of hnman nature, the reck- 
lessness of moral feeling, —even the stern, bitter wit, intellectual 
and contemptuous, without any of the gayety of youth, —are all 
precocious and peculiar ; separating Jago from the ordinary sym- 
pathies of our nature, and investing him with higher talent and 
blacker guilt.” * H. 


440 OTHELLO, ACT r 


I would say I would drown myself for the love .of 
a Guinea-hen,”’ I would change my humanity with 
a baboon. 

Rod. What should I do? I confess it is my 
shame to be so fond ; but it is not in my virtue to 
amend it. 

fago. Virtue? a fig! ’tis in ourselves that we are 
thus, or thus. Our bodies are gardens, to the which 
our wills are gardeners: so that, if we will plant 
nettles, or sow lettuce; set hyssop, and weed up 
thyme; supply it with one gender of herbs, or dis- 
tract it with many ; either to have it sterile with 
idleness, or manured with industry ; why, the power 
and corrigible authority of this lies in our wills. If 
the balance * of our lives had not one scale of rea- 
son to poise another of sensuality, the blood and 
baseness of our natures would conduct us to most 
preposterous. conclusions: But we have reason, to 
cool our raging motions, our carnal stings, our un- 
bitted lusts; whereof I take this, that you call — 
love, to be a sect, or scion.*® 

Rod. It cannot be. 

Lago. It is merely a lust of the blood, and a per- 
mission of the will. Come, be a man: drown thy- 
self? drown cats and blind puppies. I have pro- 
fess’'d me thy friend, and I confess me knit to thy 
deserving with cables of perdurable toughness ; [ 


41 Guinea-hen was a cant term for a woman of easy virtue. 

4? So the quartos ; the folio has brain, perhaps a-misprint for 
beam. — In the second line of this speech, the folio has our before 
gardens. H. 

43 A sect is what the gardeners call a cutting. —“ This speech,” 
says Coleridge, “comprises the passionless character of Iago. It 
is all will in intellect ; and therefore he is here a bold partizan of 
a truth, but yet of a truth converted into a falsehood by the ab- 
sence of all the necessary modifications caused by the frail nature 
of man.” e- A + 


ey 


Sorin: THE MOOR OF VENICE. 441 


could never better stead thee than now. Put mon- 
ey in thy purse; follow these wars; defeat thy 
favour with an usurp’d beard:** I say, put money 
in thy purse. It cannot be, that Desdemona should 
long continue her love to the Moor, — put money in 
thy purse ;—nor he histo her: it was a violent com- 
mencement, and thou shalt see an answerable se- 
questration ;*°— put but money in thy purse. — 
These Moors are changeable in their wills ; — fill thy 
purse with money: the food that to him now Its as 
luscious as locusts,** shall be to him shortly as bitter 
as coloquintida. She must change for youth: when 
she is sated with his body, she will find the error of 
her choice. —She must have change, she must ; *7 
therefore put money in thy purse.—If thou wilt 
needs damn thyself, do it a more delicate way than 
drowning. Make all the money thou canst. If 
sanctimony and a frail vow, betwixt an erring bar- 
barian*® and asupersubtle Venetian, be not too hard 
for my wits, and all the tribe of hell, thou shalt en- 
joy her; therefore make money. A pox of drown- 
ing thyself! it is clean out of the way: seek thou 
rather to be hang’d in compassing thy joy, than to 
be drown’d and go without her. 

Rod. Wilt thou be fast to my hopes, if I depend 
on the issue ? 


44 Defeat was used for disfigurement or alteration of features: 
from the French défaire. Favour is countenance. 

49 Sequestration is defined to be “a putting apart, a separation 
of a thing from the possession of both those that contend for it.’ 

46 Alluding, probably, to the ceratonia or carob, an evergreen 
growing in the south of Europe, and bearing sweet black pods. 
Commerce had made the fruit well known in London, and locust 


was the popular name for it. H. 
47 This iteration, “ She must have change, she must,” is in both 
the quartos, but not in the folio, H. 


48 Erring is here used in its Latin sense of erratic or wander 
ing. So in Hamlet: « Th’ extravagant and erring spirit.” 
H. 


442 OTHELLO, ACT 1. 


Tago. Thou art sure of me.— Go, make money. 
—I have told thee often, and I re-tell thee again and 
again, I bate the Moor: my cause is hearted ; thine 
- hath no less reason. Let us be conjunctive in our 
revenge against him: if thou canst cuckold him, 
thou dost thyself a pleasure, me a sport. There 
are many events’in the womb of time, which will be 
delivered. Traverse,*® go: provide thy money. 
We will have more of this to-morrow. — Adieu. 

Rod. Where shall we meet i’the morning? 

Jago. At my lodging. 

Rod. Vl be with thee betimes. 

Iago. Go to; farewell. Do you hear, Roderigo? 

Rod. What say you?”° 

Iago. No more of drowning; do you hear? 

Rod. 1 am chang’d. I'll sell all my Jand. 

Iago. Go to; farewell: put money enough in 
your purse.”! — ' [Exit RopEertico. 
Thus do I ever make my fool my purse ; 

For I mine own gain’d knowledge should profane, 
If I would time expend with such a snipe, 


49 That is, march. See 2 Henry IV., Act iii. se. 2, note 15. 

50 This speech, and all that follows, down to the exit of Rod- 
erigo, except the words, “I'll sell all my land,” is wanting in the 
folio. The quarto of 1622 gives all of the text; and that of 1630 
all but the words, “Go to; farewell: put money enough in your 
purse.” H. 

51 Note Iago’s pride of mastery in the repetition, “Go, make 
money,” to his anticipated dupe, even stronger than his love of 
lucre ; and, when Roderigo is completely won, when the effect has 
been fully produced, the repetition of his triumph: ‘ Go to ; fare- 
well; put money enough in your purse!’”? The remainder — 
Iago’s soliloquy — the motive-hunting of a motiveless malignity — 
how awful it is! Yea, whilst he is still allowed to bear the divine 
image, it is too fiendish for his own steady view, — for the lonely 
gaze of a being next to devil, and only not quite devil ;— and 
yet a character which Shakespeare has attempted and executed, 
without disgust and without scandal. — COLERIDGE. H. 


SC. Ill. THE MOOR OF VENICE. 443 


But for my sport and profit. I hate the Moor; 

And it is thought abroad, that ’twixt my sheets 

He has done my office: I know not if ’t be true; 

But J, for mere suspicion in that kind, 

Will do, as if for surety.°? He holds me well: 

The better shall my purpose work on him. 

Cassio’s a proper man: Let me see now ;— 

To get his place, and to plume up my will, 

In double knavery, — How? how ? — Let’s see: — 

After some time, to abuse Othello’s ear, 

That he is too familiar with his wife :— 

He hath a person, and a smooth dispose, 

To be suspected; fram’d to make women false :— 

The Moor is of a free and open nature, 

That thinks men honest that but seem to be so, 

And will as tenderly be led by th’ nose, 

As asses are :— 

I have’t ! —it is engender’d !— Hell and night * 

Must bring this monstrous birth to the world’s light. 
[ Exit. 

a 

52 That is, I will act as if I were certain of the fact. “He 
holds me well,” is, he entertains a good opinion of me. 

53 Shakespeare has shown great judgment in the darkness 
which be makes to prevail in the first counsels of Jago. To the 
Poet himself, all the succeeding events must have been clear and 
determined ; but to bring himself again into the situation of one 
who sees them in embryo, to draw a mist over that which he had 
already cleared, must have required an exertion of genius peculiar _ 
to this author alone. In so lively a manner does he make Iago 
show his perplexity about the future management of his conduct, 
that one is almost tempted to think that the’Poet had determined 
as little himself about some of the particulars of Othello’s de- 
struction, — Anderson’s Bee, vol. i. Pcs > BES 


Ag 4 eae Se 9 0 tee AIRS aes 


444 OTHELLO, ACT II. 


ACT ig 


SCENE I. A Sea-port Town in Cyprus.’ A 
Platform. 


Enter Montano and Two Gentlemen. 


Mon. What from the cape can yet discern at sea ? 
1 Gent. Nothing at all: it is a high-wrought flood; 
I cannot, *twixt the heaven and the main, 
Descry a sail. 
Mon. Methinks, the wind hath spoke aloud at land; 
A fuller blast ne’er shook our battlements: 
If it hath ruffian’d so upon the sea, 
What ribs of oak, when mountains melt on them, 
Can hold the mortise? what shall we hear of this? 
2 Gent. A segregation of the Turkish fleet : 
For do but stand upon the foaming shore, 
The chidden billow seems to pelt the clouds ; 
“The wind-shak’d surge, wit] high and monstrous 
mane,” 


1 The principal seaport town of Cyprus is Famagusta ; where 
there was formerly a strong fort and commodious haven, “ neare 
which,” says Knolles, “standeth an old castle, with four towers 
after the ancient manner of building.” To this castle we find that 

_ Othello presently repairs. 

? In the old copies, this word is spelt maine and mayne; but 
there can be no doubt that mane is the right word. Of course 
there is implied a comparison of the ‘ wind-shak’d surge” to the 
war-horse ; the Poet probably having in mind the passage of Job; 
“Hast Thou given the horse strength? Hast Thou clothed his 
neck with thunder?” Knight remarks upon the place thus: “ The 
horse of Job is the war-horse, ‘ who swalloweth the ground with 
fierceness and rage ;’ and when Shakespeare pictured to himself 
his mane wildly streaming, ‘ when the quiver rattleth against him, 
the glittering spear, and the shield,’ he saw an image of the fury 
of the ‘ wind-shak’d surge,’ and of its very form 3 and he painted 
it ‘with high and monstrous mane.’ ” H. 


sc. I ' THE MOOR OF VENICE. 445 


Seems to cast water on the burning bear,” 
And quench the guards of th’ ever-fixed pole: 
I never did like molestation view 
On the enchafed flood. ° 

Mon. If that the Turkish fleet 
Be not inshelter’d and embay’d, they are drown’d ; 
It is impossible to bear it out. 


Enter a Third Gentleman. 


3 Gent. News, lads! our wars are done :4 
The desperate tempest hath so bang’d the Turks, 
That their designment halts: a noble ship of Venice 
Hath seen a grievous wreck and sufferance 
On most part of their fleet. 

Mon. How! is this true? 

3 Gent. The ship is here put in, 

A Veronessa ;° Michael Cassio, 
Lieutenant to the warlike Moor, Othello, 
Is come on shore: the Moor himself’s at sea, 
And is in full commission here for Cyprus. 
Mon. 1 ain glad on’t; ’tis a worthy governor. 
3 Gent. But this same Cassio, though he speak 
of comfort 
Touching the Turkish loss, yet he looks sadly, 


? 


3 The constellation near the polar star. The next line alludes 
to the star Arctophylax, which literally signifies the guard of the 
bear. 

4 Thus the folio, and the quarto of 1630: the other quarto has 
lords instead of lads. ( H. 

5 So this name is spelt in the quartos ; in the folio, Verennessa. 
Modern editions, generally, change it to Veronese, as referring, not 
to the ship, but to Cassio. It is true, the same speaker has just 
called the ship “a noble ship of Venice ;”? but Verona was .trib- 
utary to the Venetian State; so that there is no reason why she 
might not belong to Venice, and still take her name from Verona. 
The explanation sometimes given is, that the speaker makes a mis- 
take, and calls Cassio a Veronese, who has before been spoken of 
as a Florentine. H. 


WObki X. 38 


446 OTHELLO, ACT II. 


And prays the Moor be safe; for they were parted 
With foul and violent tempest. 

Mon. ’Pray Heaven, he be}; 
For I have serv’d him, and the man commands 
Like a full soldier. Let’s to the seaside, ho! 

As well to see the vessel that’s come in, 

As to throw out our eyes for brave Othello ; 
Even till we make the main, and the aerial blue, 
An indistinct regard.® 

« 3 Gent. Come, let’s do so; 

For every minute is expectancy 

Of more arrivance. 


Enter Cassto. 


Cas. Thanks, you the valiant of this warlike 
isle, 
That so approve the Moor! — QO, let the heavens 
Give him defence against the elements! 
For I have lost him on a dangerous sea. 

Mon. Is he well-shipp’d ? 

Cas. His bark is stoutly timber’d, and his pilot 
Of very expert and approv’d allowance ;’ 
Therefore my hopes, not surfeited to death, 
Stand in bold cure.® 

[Cry within.] A sail, a sail, a sail! 


6 Observe in how many ways Othello is made, first our ace 
quaintance, then our friend, then the object of our anxiety, before 
the deeper interest is to be approached. — COLERIDGE. H. 

7 That is, of allowed and approved expertness. 

8 « Hopes, not surfeited to death,” is certainly obseare. Dr. 
Johnson thought there must be some error in the text, not being 
able to understand how hope could be increased till it were de- 
stroyed. Knight explains it thus: «As ‘hope deferred maketh 
the heart sick,’ so hope upon hope, without realization, is a surfeit 
of hope, and extinguishes hope. Cassio had some reasonable 
facts to prevent his hope being surfeited to death.” H. 


SC. I. THE MOOR OF VENICE. 447 


Enter a Messenger. 


Cas. What noise ? 
Mess. The town is empty; on the brow o’the sea 
Stand ranks of people, and they cry, ‘a sail 1 
Cas. My hopes do shape him for the governor. 
[Guns heard. 
2 Gent. They do discharge their shot of courtesy : 
Our friends, at least. 


Cas. I pray you, sir, go forth, 
And give us truth who ’tis that is arriv’d. 
2 Gent. ¥ shall. [ Exit. 


Mon. But, good lieutenant, is your general wiv’d ? 
Cas. Most fortunately: he hath achievy’d a maid 
That paragons description and wild fame 5 
One that excels the quirks of blazoning pens, 
And in th’ essential vesture of creation 
Does bear all excellency..— How now! who has 
put in? 


Re-enter second Gentleman. 


2 Gent. ’Tis one Iago, ancient to the general. 

Cas. He’s had most favourable and happy speed : 
Tempests themselves, high seas, and howling winds, 
The gutter’d rocks, and congregated sands, — 


9 This is the reading of both the quartos: the folio has, Does 
tyre the Ingeniuer. By the essential vesture of creation the Poet 
means her outward form, which he in another place calls “the 
muddy vesture of decay.” If the reading of the folio be adopted, 
the meaning would be this: She is one who excels all description, 
and in real beauty, or outward form, goes beyond the power of 
the inventive pencil of the artist. — Flecknoe, in his discourse on 
the English Stage, 1664, speaking of painting, mentions «the stu- 
pendous works of your great ingeniers.” And Ben Jonson, in his 
Sejanus, Acti. se. 1: « No, Silius, we are no good inginers ; we 
want their fine arts.” An ingenier or ingeniuer undoubtedly 
means an artist or painter ; aud is perhaps only another form of 
engineer, anciently used for any kind of artist or artificer. 


448 OTHELLO, ACT TI 


Traitors ensteep’d’° to clog the guiltless keel, — 
As having sense of beauty, do omit 
Their mortal natures," letting go safely by 
The divine Desdemona. 

Mon. What is she? 

Cas. She that I speak of, our great captain’s 

captain, 

Left in the conduct of the bold Iago ; 
Whose footing here anticipates our thoughts, 
A se’nnight’s speed. — Great Jove, Othello guard, 
And swell his sail with thine own powerful breath ; 
That he may bless this bay with his tall ship, 
Make love’s quick pants in Desdemona’s arms, 
Give renew’d fire to our extincted spirits, 
And bring all Cyprus comfort !’* —O, behold, 


Enter DespEemona, Emitia, Iaco, Roprerico, and 
Attendants. 


The riches of the ship is come on shore ! 
Ye men of Cyprus, let her have your knees. — 
Hail to thee, lady! and the grace of heaven, 
Before, behind thee, and on every hand, 
Enwheel thee round ! 

Des. I thank you, valiant Cassio. 
What tidings can you tell me of my lord? 

Cas. He is not yet arriv’d ; nor know I aught 
But that’s he’s well, and will be shortly here. 


10 Thus the folio, and the quarto of 1630: the other quarto has 
enscerp’d, which may be a misprint for enscarp’d. Ensteep’d here 
means simply hid in the water, submerged ; a frequent use of the 
word. Thus in The Facrie Queene, Book i., can. 11; 


« Now gan the golden Phebus for to steepe 
His fierie face in billowes of the west.” H. 


11 Mortal is deadly, destructive. 
12 These words, “ And bring all Cyprus comfort,” are not in 
the folio. Both quartos have them. H, 


sc. I. THE MOOR OF VENICE. 449 


. Des. O, but I fear !— How lost you company ? 
Cas. ‘The great contention of the sea and skies 
Parted our fellowship. 
[Cry within, «A sail, asail!” Guns heard. 
But, hark! a sail. 
2 Gent. They give their greeting to the citadel : 
This likewise is a friend. 
Cas. See for the news. — 
[Exit a Gentleman. 
Good ancient, you are welcome. — [ To Emi.] Wel- 
come, mistress. — 
Let it not gall your patience, good Iago, 
That I extend my manners: ‘tis my breeding 
That gives me this bold show of courtesy." 
[ Kissing her. 
Tago. Sir, would she give you so much of her lips 
As of her tongue she oft bestows on me, 
You’d have enough. 
Des. Alas! she has no speech. 
Tago. Yn faith, too much ; 
I find it still, when I have list to sleep: ™ 
Marry, before your ladyship, I grant, 
She puts her tongue a little in her heart, 
And chides with thinking. 
Emil. You have little cause to say so. 


8 Observe Othello’s “honest.” and Cassio’s “bold” Tago; 
and Cassio’s full guileless-bearted wishes for the safety and love- 
raptures of Othello and «the divine Desdemona.” And note also 
the exquisite circumstance of Cassio’s kissing Iago’s wife, as if it 
ought to be impossible that the dullest auditor ghould not feel Cas- 
sio’s religious love of Desdemona’s purity. Iago’s answers are 
the sneers which a proud bad intellect feels towards women, and 
expresses to a wife. Surely it ought to be considered a very ex- 
alted compliment to women, that all the sarcasms on them in 
Shakespeare are put in the mouths of villains. —CoLERIDGE. 


H. 
4 The quarto of 1622 has list ; the folio, /eave; doubtless a 
misprint. H. 


38 * 7 29 


459 OTHELLO, ACT 1% 


Tago. Come on, come on; you are pictures out 

. of doors, 

Bells in your parlours, wild cats in your kitchens, 

Saints in your injuries,’® devils being offended, 

Players in your housewifery, and housewives in 
your beds. 

Des. O, fie upon thee, slanderer ! 

Iago. Nay, it is true, or else I am a Turk: 
You rise to play, and go to bed to work. 

Emil. You shall not writé my praise. 

Tago. No, let me not. 

Des. What would’st: thou write of me, if thou 

should’st praise me ? 

Tago. O, gentle lady! do not put me to’t 5 
For I am nothing, if not critical. 

Des. Come on, assay. —There’s one gone to the 

harbour ? 

Tago. Ay, madam. 

Des. J am not merry; but I do beguile 
The thing I am, by seeming otherwise. — 

Come, how would’st thou praise me? 

Iago. 1 am about it, but, indeed, my invention 
Comes from my pate, as birdlime does from frize, 
It plucks out brains and all; but my muse labours, 
And thus she is deliver’d : 

If she be fair and wise, —fairness, and wit, 
The one’s for use, the other useth it. 

Des. Well prais’d! How, if she be black and 

witty ? 

Tago. \f she be black, and thereto have a wit, 
She'll find a white that shall her blackness fit. 

Des. Worse and worse. 


Emil. How, if fair and foolish? 


% 


15 That is, when you haye a mind to do injuries, you put on an 
air of sanctity. 


sc. 1. THE MOOR OF VENICE. 451 


Tago. She never yet was foolish that was fair ; 
For even her folly help’d her to an heir. 

Des. These are old fond paradoxes, to make fools 
laugh i’the alehouse. What miserable praise hast 
thou for her that’s foul and foolish ? 

Tago. There’s none so foul, and foolish thereunto, 
But does foul pranks which fair and wise ones do. 

Des. O, heavy ignorance !— thou praisest the 
worst best. But what praise could’st thou bestow 
on a deserving woman indeed? one that, in the au- 
thority of her merit, did justly put on the vouch of 
very malice itself? °° 

Tago. She that was ever fair, and never proud ; 
Had tongue at will, and yet was never loud ; 
Never lack’d gold, and yet went never gay ; 

Fled from her wish, and yet said, “now I may ;” 
She that, being anger’d, her revenge being nigh, 
Bade her wrong stay, and her displeasure fly ; 
She, that in wisdom never was so frail, 

To change the cod’s head for the salmon’s tail ;'7 
She that could think, and ne’er disclose her mind, 
See suitors following, and not look behind ; 

She was a wight, —if ever such wight were, — 

Des. 'To do what? 

Tago. To suckle fools, and chronicle small beer.'® 

Des. O most lame and impotent conclusion ! — 


16 The sense is this—one that was so conscious of her own 
merit, and of the authority her character had with every one, that 
she durst call upon malice itself to vouch for her. This was some 
commendation. And the character only of clearest virtue ; which 
could force malice, even against its nature, to do justice. — Wark- 
BURTON. To put on is to provoke, to incite. 

17 ‘That is, to exchange a delicacy for coarser fare. So in Queen 
Elizabeth’s Household Book: “Item, the master cookes have to 
fee all the salmons’ tailes,’’ 296. 

18 That is, to suckle children and keep the accounts of the house- 
hold. 


452 OTHELLO, ACT IL. 


Do not learn of him, Emilia, though he be thy 
husband. — How say you, Cassio? is he not a most 
profane and liberal counsellor 2” 

Cas. He speaks home, madam: you may relish 
him more in the soldier, than in the scholar. 

Iago. [Aside.] He takes her by the palm: Ay, 
well said, whisper: with as little a web as this, will 
T ensnare as great a fly as Cassio. Ay, smile upor 
her, do; I will gyve thee in thine own courtship.” 
You say true; ’tis soindeed: if such tricks as these 
strip you out of your lieutenantry, it had been better 
you had not kiss’d your three fingers so oft, whicl 
now again you are most apt to play the sir in 
Very good; well kiss’d! an excellent courtesy ! 
*tis so, indeed. Yet again your fingers to your 
lips? would they were clyster-pipes for your sake ! 
—[ Trumpet heard.| The Moor! I know his trum- 
pet. 

Cas. *Tis truly so. 

-Des. Let’s meet him, and receive him. 

Cas. Lo, where he comes! 


Enter OTHELLO, and Attendants. 


Oth. O, my fair warrior !* 


Des. My dear Othello ! 
Oth. It gives me wonder great as my content, 


19 Liberal was very often used in the sense of loose-spoken or 
licentious. H. 

2 To gyve is to fetter, to shackle. It may be as well to ob- 
_ serve that courtship is the same as courtesy, that is, complimentary 
or courtly behaviour. To play the sir is to show good breeding 
and gallantry. 

21 Perhaps Othello intends a playful allusion to the unwilling- 
ness Desdemona has expressed to “be left behind, a moth of 
peace, and he go to the war.” Steevens, however, thinks it was 
a term of endearment derived from the old French poets ; as Ron- 
sard, in his sonnets, often calls the ladies guerrieres. H. 


Betti THE MOOR OF VENICE. 453 


To see you here before me. O, my soul’s joy! 
If after every tempest ¢ome such calms, 

May the winds blow till they have waken’d death ! 
And let the labouring bark climb hills of seas, 
Olympus-high, and duck again as low 

As hell’s from heaven! If it were now to die, 
"Twere now to be most happy ; for I fear, 

My soul hath her content so absolute, 

That not another comfort like to this 

Succeeds in unknown fate. 

Des. The heavens forbid, 
But that our loves and comforts should increase, 
Even as our days do grow! 

Oth. Amen to that, sweet powers ! — 
I cannot speak enough of this content, 

It stops me here; it is too much of joy: 

And this, and this, the greatest discords be, 

[ Kissing her. 
That e’er our hearts shall make! 

Tago. [ Aside. | O, you are well tun’d now! 
But Vl set down the pegs that make this music, 

As honest as I am.” 

Oth. Come, let us to the castle. — 
News, friends; our wars are done, the Turks are 

drown’d. 
How does my old acquaintance of this isle 1 — 
Honey, you shall be well desir’d in Cyprus ; 


22 Coleridge, as we have seen in a former note, pronounces 
Iago “a being next to devil, and only not quite devil.” It is 
worth noting that Milton’s Satan relents at the prospect of ruining 
the happiness before him, and prefaces the deed with a gush of 
pity for the victims ; whereas the same thought puts Iago in a 
transport of jubilant ferocity. Is our idea of Satan’s wickedness 
enhanced by his thus indulging such feelings, and then acting in 
defiance of them, or-as if he had them not? or is Iago more dev- 
ilish than he ? H. 


454 OTHELLO, ACT It. 


I have found great love amongst them. O, my 
sweet ! 
I prattle out of fashion,”® and I dote 
In mine own comforts. —I pr’ythee, good Iago, 
Go to the bay, and disembark my coffers. 
Bring thou fhe master to the citadel: 
He is a good one,.and his worthiness 
Does challenge much respect. —Come, Desdemona, 
Once more well met at Cyprus. 
[Exeunt all but Iago and RopERico. 

Iago. Do thou meet me presently at the harbour. 
Come thither. If thou ‘be’st valiant, —as they say 
base men, being in love, have then a nobility in their 
natures more than is native to them,—list me. The 
lieutenant to-night watches on the court of guard.” 
—First, I must tell thee this, — Desdemona is di- 
rectly in love with him. 

Rod. With him! why, ’tis not possible. 

Tago. Lay thy finger —thus,”* and let thy soul be 
instructed. Mark me with what violence she first 
lov’d the Moor, but for bragging, and telling her 
fantastical lies: and will she love him still for 
prating ?°° let not thy discreet heart think it. Her 
eye must be fed; and what delight shall she have to 
look on the devil?’ When the blood is. made dull 
with the act of sport, there should be—again to 
inflame it, and to give satiety a fresh appetite — 
loveliness in favour; sympathy in years, manners, 
and beauties; all which the Moor is defective in. 
Now, for want of these requir’d conveniences, her 


23 Out of method, without any settled order of discourse. 
24 That is, the place where the guard musters. 
25 On thy mouth to stop it, while thou art listening to a wiser 


_ 6 So both the quartos ; the folio, « To love him still,” &. 
H. 


sc. THE MOOR OF VENICE. 455 


delicate tenderness will find itself abus’d, begin to 
heave the gorge, disrelish and abhor the Moor ; 
very nature will instruct her in it, and compel her 
to some second choice. Now, sir, this granted, (as 
it is a most pregnant and unfore’d position,) who 
stands so eminently in the degree of this fortune, as 
Cassio does ? aknave very voluble ; no further con- 
scionable, than in putting on the mere form of civil 
and humane seeming, for the better compassing of 
his salt and most hidden loose affection ? why, none ; 
why, none: a slippery and subtle knave ; a finder- 
out of occasions; that has an eye can stamp and 
counterfeit advantages, though true advantage never 
present itself: A devilish knave ! besides, the knave 
is handsome, young, and hath all those requisites 
in him, that folly and green minds look after; a 
pestilent complete knave; and the woman hath 
found him already. 

Rod. 1 cannot believe that in her: she is full of 
most blessed condition.*’ ; 

Tago. Blessed fig’s end! the wine she drinks is 
made of grapes: if she had been bless’d, she would 
never haye loy’d the Moor: blessed pudding! Didst 
thou not see her paddle with the palm of his hand? 
didst not mark that ? 

Rod. Yes, that I did; but that was but courtesy. 

Tago. Lechery, by bis hand ; an index”® and ob- 
scure prologue to the history of lust and foul thoughts. 
They met so near with their lips}. that their breaths 
embrac’d together. Villainous thoughts, Roderigo ! 
when these mutualities so marshal the way, hard at 
hand comes the master and main exercise, the in- 


27 Qualities, disposition of mind, 
28 Ji has already been observed that indexes were formerly pre- 
fixed to books. See Hamlet, Act iii. se. 4, note 4. 


456 OTHELLO, ACT It 


corporate conclusion. Pish !— But, sir, be you rul’d 
by me: I have brought you from Venice. Watch 
you to-night ; for the command, I’ll lay’t upon you: 
Cassio knows you not : —I’ll not be far from you: 
do you find some occasion to anger Cassio, either 
by speaking too loud, or tainting his discipline 37 
or from what other course you please, which the 
time shall more favourably minister. 

Rod. Well. 

Lago. Sir, he is rash, and very sudden in choler ; 
and, haply, with his truncheon may strike at you: °° 
Provoke him, that he may; for even out of that 
will I cause these of Cyprus to mutiny; whose 
qualification ** shaJl come into no true taste again, 
but by the displanting of Cassio. So shall you have 
a shorter journey to your desires, by the means I 
shall then have to prefer them; and the impediment 
most profitably removed, without the which there 
were no expectation of our prosperity. 

Rod, 1 will do this, if you can bring it to any 
opportunity. 

fago. 1 warrant thee. Meet me by and by at 
the citadel: I must fetch his necessaries ashore. 
Farewell. 

Rod. Adieu. [ Exit. 

Lago. That Cassio loves her, I do well believe it ; 
That she loves him, ’tis apt, and of great credit: 
The Moor— howbeit that I endure him not — 

Is of a constant, loving, noble nature ; 


9 Throwing a slur upon his discipline. 
30 The words, “with his truncheon,” are not in the folio. 
° He. ‘ 
31 Qualification, in our old writers, signifies appeasemeni, pacifi« 
cation, asswagement of anger. «To appease and qualifie one that 
is angry ; trafiquillum facere ex irato.” — BARET. 


\ 


x \ 


soy ws. THE MOOR OF VENICE. 457 


And, I dare think, he’ll prove to Desdemona 

A most dear husband. Now, I do love her too; 
Not out of absolute lust, (though, peradventure, 

I stand accountant for as great a sin,) 

But partly led to diet my revenge, 

For that I do suspect the lusty Moor 

Hath leap’d into my seat ; the thought whereof 
Doth like a poisonous mineral gnaw my inwards ; 
And nothing can or shall content my soul, 

Till I am even’d with him, wife for wife ; 

Or, failing so, yet that I put the Moor 

At least into a jealousy so strong 

That judgment cannot cure. Which thing to do,— 
If this poor trash of Venice, whom I trace * » 

For his quick hunting, stand the putting on, — 

I'll have our Michael Cassio on the hip ; 

Abuse him to the Moor in the rank garb,*® 

For I fear Cassio with my nightcap too; 

Make the Moor thank me, love me, and reward me, 
For making him egregiously an ass, 


32 This is the reading of the folio, which, though it has a plain 
and easy sense, would not do for the commentators. The fact is, 
to trace means neither more nor less than to follow, the appropri- 
ate hunting term ; the old French tracer, trucher, trasser, and the 
Italian tracciare haying the same meaning, Bishop Hall, in the 
third satire of his fifth book, uses trace for to follow : 


“Go on and thrive, my petty tyrant’s pride, 
Scorn thou to live, if others live beside ; 
And trace proud Castile, that aspires to be 
In his old age a young fifth monarchy.” 


33 «Tn the rank garb” is merely in the rig¢ht-down, or straight- 
forward fashion. In As You Like It we have « the right butter- 
woman’s rank to market.’”’? And in King Lear, Cornwall says of 
Kent in disguise, that be “ doth affect a saucy roughuess, and con- 
strains the gurb quite from his nature.” Gower says of Fluellen, 
in King Henry V., “ You thought, because he could not speak 
English in the native garb, he could not therefore handle an Eng: 
lish cudgel.” The folio reads, “in the right garb.” 


VOL. X. 39 


, ia 


‘Ot eo ae 


458 OTHELLO, ACTA 


And. practising upon his peace and quiet 
Even to madness. Tis here, but yet confus’d: 
Knavery’s plain face is never seen, till us’d.™ 


[ Exit. 


SCENE II. A Street. 


Enter a Herald, with a Proclamation; People fol- 
lowing. 

Her. It is Othello’s pleasure, our noble and valiant 
general, that, upon certain tidings now arriy’d, im- 
porting the mere’ perdition of the Turkish fleet, 
every man put himself into triumph; some to dance, 
some to make bonfires, each man to what sport and 
revels his addiction leads him; for, besides these 
beneficial news, it is the celebration of his nuptials: 
So much was his pleasure should be proclaimed. 
All offices? are open; and there is full liberty of 
feasting, from this present hour of five, till the bell 
hath told eleven. Heaven bless the isle of Cyprus, 
and our noble general Othello! [ Exeunt. 


SCENE III. A Hall in the Castle. 


Enter OTHELLO, DEspEmoNA, Cassio, and Attend- 
ants. 


Oth. Good Michael, look you to the guard to- 
night: 


34 An honest man acts upon a plan, and forecasts his designs 5 
but a knave depends upon temporary and local opportunities, and 
never knows his own purpose, but at the time of execution. — 
JOHNSON. 

1 Mere is entire. 

2 All rooms, or places in the castle, at which refreshments are 
prepared or served out. 


\ 


\ 


i 
; 


sc. IIL THE MOOR OF VENICE. 459 


Let’s teach ourselves that honourable stop, 
Not to out-sport discretion. 

Cas. Iago hath direction what to do ; 
But, notwithstanding, with my personal eye 


Will I look to’t. 


Oth. Jago is most honest. 
Michael, good night: to-morrow, with your earliest, 
Let me have speech with you.— [To DEsDEmo.] | 


Come, my dear love, 
The purchase made, the fruits are to ensue ; 
That profit’s yet to come ’twixt me and you. — 
Good night. [Exeunt Oru. Des. and Attend. 


Enter 1aco. 


Cas. Welcome, Ja%o: we must to the watch. 

Tago. Not this hour, lieutenant; ’tis not yet ten 
o’clock. Our general cast us thus early, for the love 
of his Desdemona, whom let us not therefore blame: 
he hath not yet made wanton the night with her ; 
and she is sport for Jove. 

_ Cas. She’s a most exquisite lady. 

Tago. And, V1l warrant her, full of game. 

Cas. Indeed, she’s a most fresh and delicate 
creature. 

Tago. What an eye she has! methinks it sounds 
a parley of provocation. 

Cas. An inviting eye; and yet, methinks, right 
modest. 

Tago. And, when she speaks, is it not an alarum 
to love?’ 


1 In these few short speeches of Iago is disclosed the innermost 
soul of a cold intellectual sensualist, his faculties dancing and ca- 
pering amidst the provocatives of passion, because himself with- 
out passion. Senseless or reckless of every thing good, but keenly 
alive to whatsoever he can turn to a bad use, his mind acts like a 
sieve, to strain out all the wine and retain only the lees of woman- 


460 OTHELLO, ACT IL. 


Cas. She is, indeed, perfection. 

Iago. Well, happiness to their sheets! Come, 
lieutenant, I have a stoop of wine; and here without 
are a brace of Cyprus gallants, that would fain have 
a measure to the health of the black Othello. 

Cas. Not to-night, good Iago: I have very poor 
and unhappy brains for drinking: I could well wish 
courtesy would invent some other custom of enter- 
tainment. 

Jago. O! they are our friends: but one cup; I'll 
drink for you. 

Cas. I have drunk but one cup to-night, and 
that was craftily qualified? too, and, behold, what 
innovation it makes here. I am unfortunate in the 
infirmity, and dare not task my weakness with any 
more. 

Tago. What, man! ’tis a night of revels: the 
gallants desire it. 

Cas. Where are they ? 

Iago. Here at the door ; I pray you, call thém in. 

Cas. I'll do’t, but it dislikes me. [ Exit Cassio. 

lago. If I can fasten but one cup upon him, 
With that which he hath drank to-night already, 
He'll be as full of quarrel and offence 
As my young mistress’ dog. Now, my sick fool, 

Roderigo, 


hood ; which lees he delights to hold up as the main constituents 
of the sex. And Cassio’s very delicacy and religiousness of 
thought prevent his taking offence at the villain’s heartless and 
profane levity. Iago then goes on to suit himself to all the de- 
mands of the frankest joviality. As he is without any {celings, 
so he can feign them all indifferently, to work out his design. 
Knight justly observes that “other dramatists would have made 
him gloomy and morose; but Shakespeare krew that the boon 
companion, and the cheat and traitor, are no’ ‘sentially distinet 
characters.” H. 
? Slily mixed with water. 


sc. Ill” THE MOOR OF VENICE. 461 


Whom love has turn’d almost the wrong side out- 
ward, 

To Desdemona hath to-night carous’d 

Potations pottle deep ; and he’s to watch. 

Three lads of Cyprus —noble swelling spirits, 

That hold their honours in a wary distance, 

The very elements of this warlike isle *— 

Have I to-night fluster’d with flowing cups, 

And they watch too. Now, ’mongst this flock of 
_drunkards, 

Am I to put our Cassio in some action 

That may offend the isle. — But here they come: 

If consequence do but approve my dream," 

My boat sails freely, both with wind and stream. 


* Re-enter Cassio, with him Montano, and Gentlemen. 


Cas. ’Fore Heaven, they have given me a rouse 
already.’ 

Mon. Good faith, a little one; not past a pint, as 
I am a soldier. 

Tago. Some wine, ho! 


[Sings.] And let me the canakin clink, clink ; 
And let me the canakin clink: 
A soldier’s a man, a life’s but a span ;° 
Why; then let a soldier drink. 


Some wine, boys! [Wine brought in. 
Cas. "Fore Heaven, an excellent song. 
Iago. 1 \earn’d it in England, where indeed they 


3 As quarrelsome as the discordia semina rerum 3 as quick in 
opposition as fire and water. — JoHNSON. 

4 Every scheme subsisting only in the imagination may be 
termed a dream. 

5 Rouse is the same in sense and in origin as our word carouse. 


See Hamlet, Act i. sc. 2, note 15. H. 
6 Thus both the quartos: the folio reads, “« O, man’s life’s but 
a span.” H. 


39 * 


Ss 


462 OTHELLO, ACT II 


are most potent in potting: your Dane, your Ger- 
man, and your swag-bellied Hollander, — Drink ho! 
—are nothing to your English. 

Cas. Is your Englishman so exquisite in his 
drinking ?7 

fago. Why, he drinks you, with facility, your 
Dane dead drunk; he sweats not to overthrow your 
Almain; he gives your Hollander a vomit, ere the 
next pottle can be fill’d. 

Cas. 'To the health of our general. 

Mon. I am for it, lieutenant; and Vll do you 
justice.® . 

fago. O, sweet England! 


| Sings.] King Stephen was a worthy peer, 
His breeches cost him but a crown; 
He held them sixpence all too dear, 
With that he call’d the tailor lown. 


He was a wight of high renown, 
And thou art but of low degree: 

“Lis pride that pulls the country down; 
Then take thine auld cloak about thee.® 


Some wine, ho! 


7 The folio and the quarto of 1630 read exquisite ; the other 
quarto, expert.—In the Captain of Beaumont and Fletcher, one 
of the persons asks, “ Are the Englishmen such stubborn drink- 
ers?” and another answers thus: “Not a leak at sea can suck 
more liquor: you shall have their children christened in mull’d 
sack, and at five years old able to knock a Dane down.” And 
in Henry Peacham’s Compleat Gentleman, 1622, we have the fol- 
Jowing: “ Within these fiftie or threescore yeares it was a rare 
thing with us to see a drunken man. But since we had to dow 
the quarrell of the Netherlands, the custom of drinking and , /g- 
ing healthes was brought over into England; wherein let the 
Dutch be their owne judges, if we equall them not; yea, I think, 
rather excell them.” H. 

8 That is, drink as much as you do. 

9 This stanza is copied, with a few slight variations, from an 
old ballad entitled “Take thy old Cloak about thee,” which is 
reprinted entire in Percy’s Reliques. H. 


sc. IIL THE MOOR OF VENICE. 463 


Cas. Why, this is a more exquisite song than the 
other. 

Tago. Will you hear it again ? 

Cas. No; for I hold hint to be unworthy of his 
place, that does those things. — Well, Heaven's 
above all; and there be souls that must be saved, 
and there be souls must not be saved. 

Tago. It’s true, good lieutenant. 

Cas. For mine own part, —no offence to the gen- 
eral, or any man of quality, —I hope to be saved. 

Tago. And so do I too, lieutenant. 

Cas. Ay; but, by your leave, not before me: the 
lieutenant is to be saved before the aucient. Let’s 
have no more of this; let’s to our affairs. — Forgive 
us our sins !— Gentlemen, let’s look to our business, 
Do not think, gentlemen, I am drunk: this is my 
ancient ;—this is my right hand, and this is my left 
hand: —I am not drunk now; I can stand well 
enough, and speak well enough. 

All. Excellent well. 

Cas. Why, very well, then; you must not think, 
then, that I am drunk. [ Exit. 

Mon. 'To the platform, masters: come, let’s see 
the watch. 

Tago. You see this fellow, that is gone before: 
He is a soldier, fit to stand by Cesar 
And give direction; ‘'° and do but see his vice. 

Tis to his virtue a just equinox, 

The one as long as th’ other: °tis pity of him. , 
I fear, the trust Othello puts him in, 

On some odd time of his infirmity 

Will shake this island. 


10 How differently the liar speaks of Cassio’s soldiership to 
Montano and to Roderigo! He is now talking where he is liable 
to be called to account for his words. H. 


464 OTHELLO, ACT Il. 


Mon. But is he often thus? 
Jago. *Tis evermore the prologue to his sleep: 
Hell watch the horologe a double set," 
If drink rock not his cradle. 
Mon. ! It were well, 
The general were put in mind of it. 
Perhaps, he sees it not; or his good nature 
Prizes the virtue that appears in Cassio, 
And looks not on bis evils. Is not this true 2? 


Enter RoDERIGO. 


Iago. [| Aside.| How now, Roderigo! 
I pray you, after the lieutenant; go. 
[Exit RopERtco. 
Mon. And ’tis great pity, that the noble Moor 
Should hazard such a place, as his own second, 
With one of an ingraft infirmity : 
It were an honest action to say 
So to the Moor. 
Tago. Not I, for this fair island: 
I do love Cassio well, and would do much 
To cure him of this evil. But hark! what noise? 
[Cry within — « Help! help!” 
Re-enter Cassio, driving in RopERIGO. 


Cas. You rogue! you rascal ! 
Mon. What’s the matter, lievtenant ? 
Cas. A knave!—teach me my duty! / 

I'll beat the knave into a wicker bottle.’ 


11 Tf he have no drink, he'll keep awake while the clock 
strikes two rounds, or four and twenty hours. The word horo- 
loge is familiar to most of our ancient writers: Chaucer often 
uses it. 

'2 Thus both the quartos ; the folio, “a twiggen bottle.” Both 
mean the same ; a bottle enclosed in wicker-work of twigs. 

' H. 


SC. Il. |§ THE MOOR OF VENICE. 465 


Rod. Beat me! 

Cas. [Striking him.] Dost thou prate, rogue ? 

Mon. [Staying him.] Nay, good lieutenant; I 
pray you, sir, hold your hand. 

Cas. Let me go, sir, or I'll knock you o’er the 
mazzard. 

Mon. Come, come, you’re drunk. 


Cas. Drunk ! [ They fight. 
Tago. [Aside to Rop.} Away, I say! go out, and 
cry a mutiny. — [Exit RoDERIGO. 


Nay, good lieutenant, —alas, gentlemen ! — 

Help, ho! — Lieutenant, — sir, — Montano, — sir ;— 

Help, masters ! — Here’s a goodly watch, indeed ! 
[ Bell rings. 

Who’s that that rings the bell 1 — Diablo, ho! 

The town will rise: God’s will! lieutenant, hold! 

You will be shain’d for ever.'® 


Enter OTHELLO, and Attendants. 


Oth. What is the matter here? 
Mon. ’Zounds! I bleed still; I am hurt to th’ 
death. | [He faints."* 


Oth. Hold, for your lives ! 
Tago. Hold, hold, lieutenant! sir, Montano, — 
gentlemen ! — 
Have you forgot all sense of place and duty ?"° 
Hold, hold! the general speaks to you; hold, for 
shame ! 


13 The folio substitutes - “fie, fie!” for “God’s will!’ and 
omits ’Zounds in Montano’s next speech. H. 

14 This stage-direction is found only in the quarto of 1630: the 
other quario and the folio have «¢ He dies” as a part of Montano’s 


speech. ; H. 
15 Tn all the old copies these words are transposed, thus : “ Have 
you forgot all place of sense and duty ?” H. 


30 


* UR te sen ae Me 
q . Nea Saad a = ss 


466 OTHELLO, ACT II. 


Oth. Why, how now, ho! from whence ariseth 
this? 
Are we turn’d Turks, and to ourselves do that, 
Which Heaven hath forbid the Ottomites ? 
For Christian shame, put by this barbarous brawl: 
He that stirs next to carve for his own rage, 
Holds his soul light ; he dies upon his motion. — 
Silence that dreadful bell! it frights the isle 
From her propriety.— What is the matter, mas- 
ters 7 — 
Honest Iago, that look’st dead with grieving, 
Speak, who began this? on thy love, I charge thee. 
Lago. I do not know : —friends all, but now, even 
now, 
In quarter,'® and in terms like bride and groom 
Devesting them for bed; and then, but now, 
(As if some planet had unwitted men,) 
Swords out, and tilting one at other’s breast, 
In opposition bloody. I cannot speak 
Any beginning to this peevish odds; 
And would in action glorious I had lost 
These legs, that brought me to a part of it! 
Oth. How comes it, Michael, you are thus for- 
got 217 
Cas. I pray you, pardon me; I cannot speak. 
Oth. Worthy Montano, you were wont be civil; 
The gravity and stillness of your youth 
The world hath noted, and your name is great 
In mouths of wisest censure: what’s the matter, 
That you unlace your reputation thus, 
And spend your rich opinion,’® for the name 
Of a night-brawler? give me answer to it. 


186 That is, on our station. 

17 That is, you have thus forgot yourself. — The quartos have 
came and were for comes and are. H. 

18 Opinion for reputation or character occurs in other places. 


» 


SC. Ill. THE MOOR OF VENICE. 467 


Mon. Worthy Othello, I am hurt to danger: 
Your officer, Iago, can inform you — 
While I spare speech, which something now offends 

me — 

Of all that I do know: nor know I aught 
By me that’s said or done amiss this night ; 
Unless self-charity be sometime a vice, 
And to defend ourselves it be a sin, 
When violence assails us. 

Oth. Now, by Heaven, 
My. blood begins my safer guides to rule; 
And passion, having my best judgment collied,”® 
Assays to lead the way. If I once stir, 
Or do but lift this arm, the best of you 
Shall sink in my rebuke. Give me to know 
How this foul rout began, who set it on; 
And he that is approv’d in this offence,”° 
Though he had twinn’d with me, both at a birth, 
Shall lose me. — What! in a town of war, 
Yet wild, the people’s hearts brimful of fear, 
To manage private and'domestic quarrel, 
In night, and on the court of guard and safety !** 
"Tis monstrous. — lago, who began’t ? 

Mon. If, partially affin’d”’ or leagued in office, 
Thou dost deliver more or less than truth, 
Thou art no soldier. 

Lago. Touch me not so near. 
I had rather have this tongue cut from my mouth, 


19 Collied is blackened, as with smut or coal, and figuratively 
means here obscured, darkened. See A Midsummer-Night’s 
Dream, Act i. se. 1, note 7. 

20 Approv’d in means proved to be in. 

. 21 The old copies read, “and on the court and guard of safety.” 
Malone made the transposition. 

22 Affin’d is linked in affinity. See Acti. sc. 1, note 8. Here 

it seems to mean an official, not a natural, relation. H. 


468 OTHELLO, ACT IL 


Than it should do offence to Michael Cassio ; 
Yet, I persuade myself, to speak the truth 

Shall nothing wrong him. — Thus it is, general : 
Montano and myself being in speech, 

There comes a fellow, crying out for help ; 

And Cassio following him with determin’d sword, 
To execute upon him. Sir, this gentleman 
Steps in to Cassio, and entreats his pause : 

' Myself the crying fellow did pursue, 

Lest by his clamour (as it so fell out) 

The town might fall in fright: he, swift of foot, 
Outran my purpose; and I return’d, the rather 
For that I heard the clink and fall of swords, 
And Cassio high in oath; which, till to-night, 

I ne’er might say before. When I came back, 
(For this was brief,) I found them close together, 
At blow and thrust, even as again they were, 
When you yourself did part them. 

More of this matter can I not report :— 

But men are men; the best sometimes forget. 
Though Cassio did some little wrong to him, 

As men ju rage strike those that wish them best, 
Yet, surety, Cassio, I believe, receiv’d 

From him that fled some strange indignity, 
Which patience could not pass, 

Oth. - I know, Iago, 
Thy honesty and love doth mince this matter, 
Making it light to Cassio. — Cassio, I love thee 5 
But never more be officer of mine. — 


. 


Enter Despemona, attended. 


Look, if my gentle love be not rais’d up ! — 

Ill make thee an example. 
Des. - What’s the matter? 
Oth. All’s well now, sweeting ; come away to 


bed. — 


2 ale A ails 


sc. III. THE MOOR OF VENICE. 469 


Sir, for your hurts, myself will be your surgeon. — 

Lead him off. — [Montano is led off. 

Tago, look with care about the town, 

And silence those whom this vile brawl distracted. — 

Come, Desdemona; ’tis the soldiers’ life, 

To have their balmy slumbers wak’d with strife. 

[Exeunt all but laco and Cassio, 

fago. What! are you hurt, lieutenant ? 

Cas. Ay, past all surgery. 

‘Tago. Marry, Heaven forbid ! 

Cas. Reputation, reputation, reputation! O, I 
have lost my reputation! I have lost the immortal 
part of myself, and what remains is bestial.— My 
reputation, Iago, my reputation ! 

Tago. As Lam an honest man, I thought you had 
received some bodily wound; there is more offence 
in that, than in reputation.** Reputation is an idle 
and most false imposition ; oft got without merit, 
and lost without deserving: You have lost no rep- 
utation at all, unless you repute yourself such a 
loser. What, man! there are ways to recover the 
general again: you are but now cast in his mood,” 
a punishment more in policy than in malice; even 
so as one would beat his offenceless dog, to aflright 
an imperious lion. Sue to him again, and he’s 
yours. 

Cas. I will rather sue to be despis’d, than to de- 
ceive so good a commander, with so light, so drunk- 
en, and so indiscreet an officer.*> Drunk? and speak 


23 Thus both the quartos: the folio has sense instead of offence. — 
H. 
24 Thrown off, dismissed in his anger. 
25 The folio has slight instead of light, the reading of both the 
quartos.— The passage beginning with Drunk, aud ending with 
shiwdow, is not in the first quarto. H. 


VOL. x 40 


470 OTHELLO, ACT Il. 


parrot? and squabble? swagger? swear? and dis- 
course fustian with one’s own shadow ? —Q, thou 
invisible spirit of wine! if thou hast no name to be 
known by, let us call thee — devil. 

Tago. What was he that you follow’d with your 
sword? What had he done to you? 

Cas. I know not. 

Lago. Is’t possible ? 

Cas. I remember a mass of things, but nothing 
distinctly ; a quarrel, but nothing wherefore. —O 
God! that men should put an enemy in their 
mouths, to steal away their brains! that we should, 
with joy, revel, pleasure, and applause, transform 
ourselves into beasts ! 

Tago. Why, but you are now well enough: How 
came you thus recovered ? 

Cas. It hath pleas’d the devil drunkenness to 
give place to the devil wrath: one unperfectness 
shows me another, to make me frankly despise my- 
self. 7 

Iago. Come, you are too severe a moraler. As 
the time, the place, and the condition of this coun- 
try stands, I could heartily wish this had not be- 
fallen; but, since it is as it is, mend it for your own 
good. 

Cas. I will ask him for my place again ; he shall 
tell me I am a drunkard! Had I as many mouths 
as Hydra, such an answer would stop them all. To 
be now a sensible man, by and by a fool, and pres- 
ently a beast! O strange !— Every inordinate cup 
is unbless’d, and the ingredient is a devil. 

Iago. Come, come; good wine is a good familiar 
creature, if it be well us’d: exclaim no more against 
it. And, good lieutenant, I think, you think I love 
you. 


SC. III. THE MOOR OF VENICE. 471 


Cas. I have well approved it, sir. —IJ drunk ! 

Tago. You, or any man living, may be drunk at 
some time, man. Ill tell you what you shall do. 
Our general’s wife is now the general : —I may say 
so in this respect, for that he hath devoted and 
given up himself to the contemplation, mark, and 
denotement of her parts and graces : — confess 
yourself freely to her; importune her: she'll help 
to put you in your place again. She is of so free, 
so kind, so apt, so blessed a disposition, that she 
holds it a vice in her goodness, not to do more than 
she is requested. This broken joint between you 
and her husband entreat her to splinter; and, my 
fortunes against any lay worth naming, this crack 
of your love shall grow stronger than it was before. 

Cas. You advise me well. 

Iago. 1 protest, in the sincerity of love, and hon- 
est kindness. 

Cas. 1 think it freely; and, betimes in the morn- 
ing, I will beseech the virtuous Desdemona to un- 
dertake for me. I am desperate of my fortunes, if 
they check me here. 

Iago. You are in the right. Good night, lieu- 
tenant; I must to the watch. 


Cas. Good night, honest lago. [ Exit Cassio. 
Tago. And what’s he, then, that says I play the 
villain ? 


When this advice is free I give, and honest, 
Probal to thinking, and, indeed, the course 
To win the Moor again? For ’tis most easy 
The inclining *® Desdemona to subdue 

In any honest suit: she’s fram’d as fruitful a 
As the free elements. And, then, for her 


26 Inclining here signifies compliant. 
27 Corresponding to benigna. Liberal, bountiful as the elements, 
out of which all things were produced. 


472 OTHELLO, ACT IF 


To win the Moor, — were’t to renounce his baptism, 
All seals and symbols of redeemed sin, — 

His soul is,so enfetter’d to her love, 

That she may make, unmake, do what slie list, 
Even as her appetite shall play the god 

With his weak function. How am], then, a villain, 
To counsel Cassio to this parallel course,” 
Directly to his good? Divinity of hell! 

When devils will their blackest sms put on, 

They do suggest at first with heavenly shows, , 
As I do now:” for while this honest fool 

Plies Desdemona to repair his fortunes, 

And she for him pleads strongly to the Moor, 

I'll pour this pestilence into his ear, — 

That she repeals him for her body’s lust ; °° 

And, by how much she strives to do him good, 

She shall undo her credit with the Moor: 

So will I turn her virtue into pitch, 

And out of her own goodness make the net, 

That shall enmesh them all. —How now, Roderigo! 


Enter RopeERIGo. 


Rod. 1 do follow here in the chase, not like a 
hound that hunts, but one that fills up the cry. 
My money is almost spent; I have been to-night 
exceedingly well cudgell’d: and I think the issue 
will be, I shall bave so much experience for my 
pains ; and so, with no money at all, and a little 
more wit, return again to Venice. 7 

Iago. How poor are they, that have not patience! 
What wound did ever heal, but by degrees? 


28 Parallel course for course level or even with his design. _ 

29 That is, when devils will instigate to their blackest sins, they 
tempt, &c. We have repeatedly met with the same use of put on 
for instigate, and of suggest for tempt. H. 

30 Repeal in the sense of recadd ; formerly a common use of the 
word, He 


SO.7aiT- THE MOOR OF VENICE. 473 


Thou know’st we work by wit, and not by witch- 
craft; 

And wit depends on dilatory time. 

Does’t not go well? Cassio hath beaten thee, 

And thou by that small hurt hast cashier’d Cassio. 

Though other things grow fair against the sun, 

Yet fruits that blossom first will first be ripe :” 

Content thyself awhile. — By th’ mass, "tis morning: 

- Pleasure and action make the hours seem short. 

Retire thee ; go where thou art billeted : 

Away, I say ; thou shalt know more hereafter : 

Nay, get thee gone.— [Exit Roper.] Two things 
are to be done. 

My wife must move for Cassio to her mistress 5 

Vl set her on: 

Myself, the while, to draw the Moor apart,”” 

And bring him jump when he may Cassio find 

Soliciting his wife.— Ay, that’s the way: 

Dull not device by coldness and delay. [Exit. 


ACT Ill. 


SCENE I. Before the Castle. 


Enter Cassio, and some, Musicians. 


Cas. Masters, play here, I will content your pains 


31 The blossoming of things, to which Iago alludes, is the re- 
moval of Cassio. As their plan had already blossomed, so there 
was good hope that the fruits of it would soon be ripe. — The folio 
substitutes In troth for By th’ mass. 

32 The old copies read “a while” instead of “the while.” 
Theobald made the change. H. 


40* : 


474 OTHELLO, ACT III. 


Something that’s brief; and bid good-morrow, gen 
eral.’ [ Music. 


Enter the Clown: 


Clo. Why, masters, have your instruments been 
at Naples, that they speak i’the nose thus? 

1 Mus. How, sir, how! 

Clo. Are these, I pray you, call’d wind instru- 
ments 2” 

1 Mus. Ay, marry, are they, sir. 

Clo. O! thereby hangs a tail. 

1 Mus. Whereby hangs a tale, sir? 

Clo. Marry, sir, by many a wind instrument that 
I know. But, masters, here’s money for you; and 
the general so likes your music, that he desires you, 
for love’s sake, to make no more noise with it. 

1 Mus. Well, sir, we will not. 

Clo. If you have any music that may not be 
heard, to’t again; but, as they say, to hear music 
the general does not greatly care. 

1 Mus. We have none such, sir. 

Clo. Then put up your pipes in your bag, for I'll 
away. Go; vanish into air; away! 

Exeunt Musicians. 

Cas. Dost thou hear, mine honest friend 2 

Clo. No, I hear not your honest friend; I hear 
you. 

Cas. Pr’ythee, keep up thy quillets. 'There’s a 
poor piece of gold for thee. If the gentlewoman 
that attends the general’s wife be stirring, tell her 
there’s one Cassio entreats her a little favour of 
speech: wilt thou do this? 


1 It was usual for friends to serenade a new-married couple on 
‘he morning after the celebration of the marriage, or to greet them 
with a morning song to bid them good morrow. 

2 Thus both the quartos: the folio omits call’d. H. 


4 


SC. 1. | THE MOOR OF VENICE. A475 


Clo. She is stirring, sir: if she will stir hither, I 
shall seem to notify unto her. { Exit. 


Enter Laco. 


Cas. Do, good my friend.* —In happy time, Iago. 
Tago. You have not been a-bed, then? 
Cas. Why, no; the day had broke 
Before we parted. I have made bold, Iago, 
To send in to your wife: my suit to her 
Is, that she will to virtuous Desdemona 
Procure me some access. 
Lago. I'll send her to you presently ; 
And I'll devise a mean to draw the Moor 
Out of the way, that your converse and business 
May be more free. [ Exit. 
Cas. I humbly thank you for’t. I never knew 
A Florentine more kind and honest." 


Enter Emiuia. 


Emil. Good morrow, good lieutenant: I am sorry 
For your displeasure ;° but all will soon be well. 
The general and his wife are talking of it; 

And she speaks for you stoutly: The Moor replies, 
That he you hurt is of great fame in Cyprus, 
And great affinity, and that in wholesome wisdom 


3 These words are in both the quartos, but not in the folio. 
H. 

4 In consequence of this line a doubt has been entertained con- 
cerning the country of Iago. Cassio was undoubtedly a Floren- 
tine, as appears by the first scene of the play, where he is ex- 
pressly called one. That Iago was a Venetian is proved by a 
speech in the third scene of this act, and by what he says in the 
fifth act, after having stabbed Roderigo. All that Cassio means to 
say in the present passage is, I never experienced more honesty 
and kindness even in one of my own countrymen. 

5 That is, tne displeasure you have incurred from Othello. The 
folio has sure instead of soon. 


76 OTHELLO, ACT III. 


He might not but refuse you; but, he protests, he 
loves you, 
And needs no other suitor but his likings, 
To take the saf’st occasion by the front,® 
To bring you in again. 
Cas. Yet, 1 beseech you, — 
If you think fit, or that it may be done, — 
Give me advantage of some brief discourse 
With Desdemona alone. 
Emil. Pray you, come in; 
I, will bestow you where you shall have time 
To speak your bosom freely. 
Cas. I am ‘much bound to you. 
| Exeunt. 


SCENE II. <A Room in the Castle. 


Enter OTHELLO, Taco, and Gentlemen. 


Oth. These letters give, Iago, to the pilot; 
And by him do my duties to the senate :* 
That done, I will be walking on the works; 
Repair there to me. ; 
Tago. Well, my good lord, I'll do’t. 
Oth. This fortification, gentlemen, shall we see’t ? 
Gent. We'll wait upon your lordship. [zeunt. 


SCENE III. Before the Castle. 


Enter Despemona, Cassio, and EmiItia. 


Des. Be thou assur’d, good Cassio, I will do 
All my abilities in thy behalf. 


6 This line is wanting in the folio, and the last speech of the 
scene in the quarto of 1622. H. 
1 Thus the folio: both quartos have state instead of senate. 
H. 


SC. II. THE MOOR OF VENICE. 477 


Emil. Good madam, do: I know it grieves my 
husband, : 
As if the case were his.” 
Des. O, that’s an honest fellow !— Do not chien 
Cassio, 
But I will have my lord and you again 
As friendly as you were. 

Cas. Bounteous madam, 
Whatever shall become of Michael Cassio, 

He’s never any thing but your true servant. 

Des. O, sir!* I thank you. You do love my lord: 
You have known him long; and be you well assur’d, 
He shall in strangeness stand no further off 
Than in a politic distance. 

Cas. Ay, but, lady, 

That policy may either last so long,* 

Or feed upon such nice and waterish diet, 
Or breed itself so out of circumstance, 
That, I being absent, and my place supplied, 
My general will forget my love and service. 

Des. Do not doubt that: before Emilia here, 

I give thee warrant of thy place. Assure thee, 

If I do vow a friendship, Vll perform it 

To the last article: my lord shall never rest ; 

I'll watch him tame,’ and talk him out of patience 5 
His bed shall seem a school, his board a shrift ; 

Ill intermingle every thing he does 

With Cassio’s suit. Therefore be merry, Cassio ; 


2 Thus both the quartos: the folio has warrant instead of know, 
and cause instead of case. H. 

3 The folio has 1 know’t instead of O, sir. 

4 He may either of himself think it politic to keep me out of 
office so long, or he may be satisfied with such slight reasons, or so 
many accidents may make him think my readmission at that time 
improper, that I may be quite forgotten. —JoHNSON, 

5 Hawks and other birds are tamed by keeping them from sleep. 
T'o this Shakespeare alludes. 


Laas’ 1 = he he! Yi-w? - - 
< eek hi Bow, os Ae 


478 OTHELLO, ACT III. 


For thy solicitor shall rather die, 
Than give thy cause away. 


Enter OTHELLO, and Jaco, at a distance. 


Emil. Madam, here comes my lord. 
Cas. Madam, I'll take my leave. 
Des. Why, stay, and hear me speak. 
Cas. Madam, not now: I am very ill at ease, 
Unfit for mine own purpose. 
Des. Well, do your discretion. +» [Exit Cassto. 
Tago. Ha! I like not that. 
Oth. What dost thou: say? 
Tago. Nothing, my lord; or if—I know not what. 
Oth. Was not that Cassio, parted from my wife? 
Tago. Cassio, my lord? No, sure, I cannot think 
it, 
That he would steal away so guilty-like, 
Seeing you coming. 
Oth. I do believe ’twas he. 
Des. How now, my lord! 
I have been talking with a suitor here, 
A man that languishes in your displeasure. 
Oth. Who is’t you mean ? 
Des. Why, your lieutenant Cassio. Good my 
lord, 
If I have any grace, or power to move you, 
His present reconciliation take ; 
For, if he be not one that truly loves you, 
That errs in ignorance, and not in cunning,° 
I have no judgment in an honest face. 
I pr’ythee call him back. 
Oth. Went he hence now ? 
Des. Ay, sooth; so humbled, 


@ Cunning here means knowledge, the old sense of the word. 
4 fe; 


sc. IIL. ' THE MOOR OF VENICE. 479 


That he hath left part of his grief with me, 
To suffer with him. Good love, call him back. 
Oth. Not now, sweet Desdemona; some other 
time. 
Des. But shall’t be shortly ? 
Oth. The sooner, sweet, for you. 
Des. Shall’t be to-night at supper ? 
Oth. No, not to-night. 
Des. To-morrow dinner then? 
Oth. I shall not dine at home: 
I meet the captains at the citadel. 
Des. Why, then, to-morrow night; or Tuesday 
morn 5 
Or Tuesday noon, or night; or Wednesday morn: 
I pr’ythee, name the time ; but let it not 
Exceed three days: in faith, he’s penitent ; 
And yet his trespass, in our common reason, 
(Save that, they say, the wars must make examples 
Out of the’ best,) is not, almost, a fault 
J” incur a private check. When shall he come? 
Teil me, Othello: I wonder in my soul, 
What you could ask me, that I should deny, 
Or stand so mammering on.° What! Michael . 
Cassio, 
That came a-wooing with you, and so many a time, 
When I have spoke of you dispraisingly, 
Hath ta’en your part; to have so much to do 
To bring him in! Trust me, I could do much, — 
Oth. ’Pr’ythee, no more: let him come when he 
will ; 
I will deny thee nothing. 


/ The old copies have her instead of the. The change is from 
Singer. H. 

8 So hesitating, in such doubtful suspense. So in Lyly’s Euphues, 
1580: «Neither stand in a mamering whether it be best to depart 


_ or not.” . 


480 OTHELLO, ACT III. 


Des. Why, this is not a boon; 
Tis as I should intreat you wear your gloves, 
Or feed on nourishing dishes, or keep you warm; 
Or sue to you to do a peculiar profit ' 
To your own person: nay, when I have a suit 
Wherein I mean to touch your love indeed, 
It shall be full of poize and difficult weight, 
And fearful to be granted. 
Oth. I will deny thee nothing: 
Whereon, I do beseech thee, grant me this, 
T'o leave me but a little to myself. 
Des. Shall I deny you? no: Farewell, my lord. 
Oth. Farewell, my Desdemona: I’ll come to thee 
straight. 
Des. Emilia, come.— Be as your fancies teach 
you ; 
Whate’er you be, I am obedient. 
[ Exit, with EMIta. 
Oth. Excellent wretch !® Perdition catch my soul, 
But I do love thee! and when I love thee not, 
Chaos is come again.”® 
Tago. My noble lord, — 
Oth. What dost thou say, Iago? 
Tago. Did Michael Cassio, when you woo’d my 
lady, 
Know of your love? 


9 The meaning of the word wretch is not generally understood. 
It is now in some parts of England a term of the fondest and 
softest tenderness. It expresses the utmost degree of amiableness, 
joined with an idea which perhaps all tenderness includes, of fee- 
bleness, softness, and want of protection. Othello, considering 
Desdemona as excelling in beauty and virtue, soft and timorous by 
her sex, and by her situation absolutely in his power, calls her Ex- 
cellent wretch! It may be expressed, “ Dear, harmless, helpless 
excellence.” — JOHNSON. 

10 The meaning is, “Ere I cease 40 love thee, the world itself 
shall be reduced to its primitive chaos.”’ — But is used in its ex- 
ceptive sense, be out, but that, or, “if I do not love tuee.”” H. 


West We 


$C. II. - TH MOOR OF VENICE. 481 


Oth. He did, from first to last:'? Why dost thou 
ask 1 
Tago. But for a satisfaction of my thought ; 
No further harm. 
Oth. Why of thy thought, Iago ? 
Tago. 1 did not think he had been acquainted 
with her. 
Oth. O, yes! and went between us very oft. 
Tago. Indeed! 
Oth. Indeed! ay, indeed: discern’st thou aught 
in that ? 
Is he not honest ? 
Tago. Honest, my lord? 
Oth. Honest? ay, honest. 
Tago. My lord, for aught I know. 
Oth. What dost thou think ? 
Tago. Think, my lord? 
Oth. Think, my lord! By Heaven, thou echo’st 
me, 
As if there were some monster in thy thought 
Too hideous to be shown. ‘Thou dost mean some- 
thing: 
I heard thee say but now, thou lik’dst not that, 
When Cassio left my wife: what didst not like ? 
And, when I told thee he was of my counsel 
In my whole course uf wooing, thou criedst, « In- 
deed!” 
And didst contract and purse thy brow together, 
As if thou then hadst shut up in thy brain 
Some horrible conceit. If thou dost love me, 
Show me thy thought. 


11 In Act i. sc. 2, when Iago, speaking of the Moor to Cassio, 
says, “ He’s married,’”’ Cassio asks, «© To whom?” Yet here 
he seems to have known all about it. Of course the explanation 
is, that Cassio there feigned ignorance, in order to keep his friend’s 
secret till it should be publicly known. H. 


VOL. xX. Al 31 


oe i he heoat Louie aed 


482 OTHELLO, ACT Itt. 


Iago. My lord, you know I love you. 

Oth. I think thou dost: 
And — for I know thou’rt full of love and honesty, 
And weigh’st thy words before thou giv’st them 

breath — 

Therefore these stops of thine fright me the more: 
For such things, in a false disloyal knave, 
Are tricks of custom; but, in a man that’s just, 
They’re close delations,'” working from the heart, » 
That passion cannot rule. 

Lago. For Michael Cassio, 
I dare be sworn, I think that he is honest. 

Oth. I think so too. 

Tago. Men should be what they seem ; 
Or, those that be not, would they might seem none ! 
Oth. Certain, men should be what they seem. 

Tago. Why, then I think Cassio’s an honest man. 

Oth. Nay, yet there’s more in this. 

I pray thee, speak to me as to thy thinkings, 
As thou dost ruminate; and give thy worst 
Of thoughts the worst of words. 

Lago. Good my lord, pardon me: 

Though I am bound to every act of duty, 

I am not botind to that all slaves are free to. 

Utter my thoughts? Why, say, they are vile and 
false ; 

As where’s that palace, whereinto foul things 


12 Thus the folio and the quarto of 1630; the other quarto, de- 
notements. ‘Close delations’”’ are secret accusings, intimations, 
or informations. So in Ben Jonson’s Volpone, Act ii. se. 3: “Yet, 
if I do it not, they may delate my slackness to my patron.” —It 
should be noted, that in all this part of the dialogue the doubts 
started in Othello by the villain’s artful insinuations have reference 
only to Cassio. There is not the least sign that the Moor’s 
thoughts anywise touch his wife; and Iago seems perplexed that 
his suspicions have lighted elsewhere than he had intended. 

H. 


ys ile ll 


Ms SC. If. THE MOOR OF VENICE. 483 


Sometimes intrude not? who has,a breast so pure, 
But some uncleanly apprehensions 
Keep leets, and law-days, and in session sit 
With meditations lawful ?’° 

Oth. Thou dost conspire against thy friend, Iago, 
If thou but think’st him wrong’d, and mak’st his ear 
A stranger to thy thoughts. 

Lago. I do beseech you, — 
Though I, perchance, am vicious in my guess, 
(As, I confess, it is my nature’s plague 
To spy into abuses, and oft my jealousy 
Shapes faults that are not,) that your wisdom yet, 
From one that so imperfectly conceits,"* 
Would take no notice; nor build yourself a trouble 
Out of his scattering and unsure observance. 
It were not for your quiet, nor your good, 
Nor for my manhood, honesty, or wisdom, 
To let you know my thoughts. 


13 Who has so virtuous a breast that some impure conceptions 
and uncharitable surmises will not sometimes enter into it; hold a 
session there, as in a regular court, and “bench by the side” of 
authorised and Jawful thoughts? A leet is also called a /aw-day. 
«This court, in whose manor soever kept, was accounted the 
king’s court, and commonly held every half year:” it was a meet- 
ing of the hundred “to certify the king of the good manners and 
government of the inhabitants.” 

14 We here follow the quarto of 1630, with which the folio 
agrees, except that it reads of instead of oft, and omits yet afler 
wisdom. The quarto of 1622 reads the same, except that ithas «I 
entreat you, then,” instead of “that your wisdom yet,” and con- 
jects instead of conceits. It has been proposed to read «of my 
jealousy,” and change shapes into shape. At first sight, this is 
plausible, as it satisfies the grammar perfectly. But jealousy is 
itself, evidently, the “nature’s plague”’ of which Iago is speak- 
ing. So that the sense would be,—<« It is my nature’s plague to 
spy into abuses, and of my nature’s plague to shape faults that are 
not ;” which comes pretty near being nonsense. On the other 
hand, if we read, —“It is my nature’s plague to spy into abuses, 
and oft my nature’s plague shapes faults that are not,” — the lane 
guage is indeed not good, but the sense is perfect. H, 


“ee Ay eS 


484 OTHELLO, ACT III. 
Oth. . What dost thou mean ? 
Iago. Good name, in man and woman, dear my 

lord, 


Is the immediate jewel of their souls: 
Who steals my purse, steals trash; ’tis something, 
nothing ; 
"T'was mine, ’tis his, and has been slaye to thou- 
sands : | 
But he that filches from me my good name, - 
Robs me of that which not enriches him, 
And makes me poor indeed. 
Oth. By Heaven, Vl know thy thoughts. 
Tago. You cannot, if my heart were in your hand; 
Nor shall not, whilst ’tis in my custody. 
Oth. Ha! 
Tago. O, beware, my lord, of jealousy ! 
It is the green-ey’d monster, which doth make * 
The meat it feeds on: that cuckold lives in bliss, 
Who, certain of his fate, loves not his wronger ; 
But, O! what damned minutes tells he o’er, 
Who dotes, yet doubts ; suspects, yet strongly loves! 
Oth. O misery ! 
Tago. Poor, and content, is rich, and rich enough ; 
But riches, fineless,'* is as poor as winter, 
To him that ever fears he shall be poor. — 
Good Heaven, the souls of all my tribe defend 
From jealousy ! 


15 The old copies all read mocke instead of make. The sense 
evidently requires make, and the change, first made by Hanmer, 
has been almost universally adopted. There cannot well be a 
truer description of jealousy, than that it creates its own food, 
Mr. Collier tells us that a copy of the fourth folio belonging to Mr. 
Holgate has make substituted in the hand-writing of Southern. — 
Tn the last line of this speech, the folio has soundly instead of 
strongly, which is the reading of both quartos. H. 

16 ‘That is, endless, unbounded. Warburton observes that this 
is finely expressed — winter producing no fruits. 


Td od 1 a ae 


sc. Ill. THE MOOR OF VENICE. 485 


Oth. Why, why is this ? 
Think’st thou, I’d make a life of jealousy, 
To follow still the changes of the moon 
With fresh suspicions? No: to be once in doubt, 
Is once to be resolv’d. Exchange me for a goat, 
When I shall turn the business of my soul 
To such exsufflicate and blown surmises,!”” 
Matching thy inference. Tis not to make me 

jealous, 

To say my wife is fair, feeds well, loves company, 
Is free of speech, sings, plays, and dances well ; 
Where virtue is, these are more virtuous : 
Nor from mine own weak merits will I draw 
The smallest fear or doubt of her revolt ; 
For she had eyes, and chose me. No, lago; 
Vl see, before I doubt; when I doubt, prove ; 
And, on the proof, there is no more but this, — 
Away at once with love, or jealousy. 

Tago. 1 am glad of this, for now I shall have 

reason 

To show tie love and duty that I bear you, 
With franker spirit: therefore, as I am bound, 
Receive it from me:—I speak not yet of proof. 


17 This is the only known instance of exsufflicate. Phillips in- 
terprets sufflation “a puffing up, a making to swell with blowing.” 
In Plautus we have, “ Suffavit nescio quid uxore ;” which Cooper 
renders, “ He hath whispered something in his wifes eare whatso- 
ever it be.” Todd, in his edition of Johnson’s Dictionary, ex- 
plains the word thus: “ Exsufflicate maybe traced to the low 
Latin exsufflare, to spit down upon, an ancient form of exorcising 5 
and, figuratively, to spit out in abhorrence or contempt. Exsuf- 
flicate may thus signify contemptible.” We will add Ricbard- 
son’s explanation, and then leave the reader to choose for himself; 
« Exsufflicate, in Shakespeare, is not improbably a misprint for 
exsufflate, that is, efflate or efflated, puffed out, and, consequently 
exaggerated, extravagant 3 to which blown is added, not so mueh 
for the sake of a second epithet, with a new meaning, as of giving 
emphasis to the first.” H. 


41* 


. oye! Sa 


486 OTHELLO, ACT Itt. 


Look. to your wife ; observe her well with Cassio; 

Wear you eye —thus, not jealous, nor secure : 

I would not have your free and noble nature, 

Out of self-bounty,'® be abus’d ; look to’t. 

[I know our country disposition well: 

In Venice they do let Heaven see the pranks 

They dafe not show their husbands ; their best con- 
science 

Is, not to leave’t undone, but keep’t unknown.’ 

Oth. Dost thou say so? ; 

Tago. She did deceive her father, marrying you; 
And, when she seem’d to shake, and fear your looks, 
She lov’d them most. 

Oth. And so she did. 

Lago. | Why, go to, then: 
She that, so young, could give out such a seeming, 
To seal her father’s eyes up, close as oak, — 

He thought ’twas witchcraft.— But I am much te 
blame : , 
I humbly do beseech you of your pardon, 
For too much loving you., 
Oth. I am bound to thee for ever. 
Lago. I see, this hath a little dash’d your spirits. 


18 Self-bounty for inherent generosity. 

19 This and the following argument of Iago ought to be deeply 
impressed on every reader. Deceit and falsehood, whatever con- 
veniences they may for a time promise or produce, are in the sum 
of life obstacles to happiness. Those who profit by the cheat, dis- 
trust the deceiver, and the act by which kindness is sought puts an 
end. to confidence. — The same objection may be made with a 
lower degree of strength against the imprudent generosity of dis- 
proportionate marriages. When the first heat of passion is over, 
it is easily sueceeded by suspicion, that the same violence of in- 
clination, which caused one irregularity, may stimulate to another ; 
and those who have shown that their passions are too powerful for 
their pradence will, with very slight appearances against them, be 
censured, as not very likely to restrain them by their virtue. — 
JOHNSON. 


et 


SC. III. . THE MOOR OF VENICE. 487 


Oth. Not a jot, not a jot. 
Tago. | Trust me, I fear it has. 
I hope you will consider, what is spoke 
Comes from my love.— But I do see you’re mov'd: 
I am to pray you, not to strain my speech 
To grosser issues, nor to larger reach, 
Than to suspicion. 
Oth. I will not. 
Tago. Should you do so, my lord, 
My speech should fall into such vile success co 
As my thoughts aim not at. Cassio’s my worthy 
friend. — 
My lord, I see you’re mov’d. 
Oth. No, not much mov’d. — 
I do not think but Desdemona’s honest. 
Iago. Long live she so! and long live you to 
think so! 
Oth. And yet, how nature, erring from itself, — 
Tago. Ay, there’s the point :—as,— to be bold 
with you, — 
Not to affect many proposed matches, 
Of her own clime, complexion, and degree ; 
Whereto, we see, in all things nature tends: 
Foh! one may smell, in such, a will most rank, 
Foul disproportion, thoughts unnatural. — 
But pardon me; I do not in position 
Distinctly speak of her; though I may fear, 
Her will, recoiling to her better. judgment, —« 
May fall to match you with her country forms, 
And, happily, repent.” 


20 Success here means consequence or event; as successo, in 
Italian. So in Sidney's Arcadia: “Straight my heart misgave 
me some evil success !/””' 

21 Where a word of three syllables is wanted, the poets often 
used happily for haply, that is, perhaps. H. 


488 OTHELLO, PACT TI 


Oth. Farewell, farewell. 
If more thou dost perceive, let me know more; 
Set on thy wife to observe. Leave me, Iago. 


Tago. My lord, I take my leave. [ Going. 
Oth. Why did I marry ?— This honest creature, 
doubtless, 


Sees and knows more, much more, than he unfolds. 
Tago. My lord, I would I might intreat your 
honour 
To scan this thing no further; leave it to time: 
Although ’tis fit that Cassio have his place, 
(For, sure, he fills it up with great ability,) 
Yet, if you please to hold him off awhile, 
You shall by that perceive him and his means: ”” 
Note, if your lady strain his entertainment 
With any strong or vehement importunity ; ° 
Much will be seen in that. In the mean time, 
Let me be thought too busy in my fears, 
(As worthy cause I have to fear I am, ) 
And hold her free, I do beseech your honour. 
Oth. Fear not my government. 
Lago. I once more take my leave. [ Exit. 
Oth. This fellow’s of exceeding honesty, 
And knows all qualities, with a learned spirit,** 
Of human dealings. If I do prove her haggard,” 
Though that her jesses were my dear heart-strings, 


22 You shall discover whether he thinks his best means, his 
most powerful interest, is by the solicitation of your lady. 

*3 That is, press his readmission to pay and office. 

*4 The construction is, « He knows with a learned spirit all 
qualities of human dealings.” 

29 Haggard is wild, unreclaimed ; commonly used of a hawk. 
So in Sir Thomas Browne’s Religio Medici: «Thus I teach my 
haggard and unrecluimed reason to stoop to the lure of faith? A 
passage in The White Devil, or Vittoria Corombona, 1612, shows 
that the term was sometimes applied to a wanton: “Is tlis your 
perch, you haggard? fly to the stews.” H. 


ably o. ) nS i aia _ 
ae NX 


SC. III. THE MOOR OF VENICE. 489 


I’d whistle her off, and let her down’ the wind, 
To prey at fortune.**  Haply, for I am black, 
And have not those soft parts of conversation 
That chamberers have ;*’—or, for I am declin’d 
Into the vale of years, —yet that’s not much ; — 
She’s gone; I am abus’d; and my relief 

Must be to loathe her. O, curse of marriage! 
That we can call these delicate creatures ours, 
And not their appetites: I had rather be a toad, 
And live upon the vapour of a dungeon, 

Than keep a corner in the thing I love, 

For others’ uses. Yet, ’tis the plague of great ones; 
Prerogativ’d are they less than the base ; 

*Tis destiny unshunnable, like death: 

Even then this forked plague is fated to us,”* 
When we do quicken.” Desdemona comes: 


26 Jesses are short straps of leather tied about the foot of a hawk, 
by which sbe is held on the fist. —“ The faleconers always let fly 
the hawk against the wind ; if she flies with the wind bebind her, 
she seldom returns. If therefore a hawk was for any reason to be 
dismissed, she was let down the wind, and: from that time shifted 
for herself and preyed at fortune.” This was told to Dr. Johnson 
by Mr. Clark. So in Dryden’s Annus Mirabilis : 


“ [ave you not seen, when, whistled from the fist, 
Some falcon stoops at what her eye design’d, 
And, with her eagerness the quarry miss’d, 
Straight flies at check, and clips it down the wind?” 


27 Men of intrigue. Chambering and wantonness are mentioned 
together in the Scriptures. 
28 One of Sir John Harington’s Epigrams will illustrate this 


«« Actzeon guiltless unawares espying 
Naked Diana bathing in her bowre 
Was plagued with HoRNEs ; his dogs did him devoure 5 
Wherefore take heed, ye that are curious, prying, 
With some such forked plague you be not smitten, 
And in your foreheads see your faults be written ” 


29 That is, when we begin to live. — In what follows, the folio 
reads, “ Look, where she comes: If she be false, heaven mock’a 
itself.” Both quartos have it as in the text. He 


499 OTHELLO, ACT III. 


Enter DESDEMONA and EmItia. 


If she be false, O, then heaven mocks itself ! — 
Yl not believe’t. 
Des. How now, my dear Othello! 
Your dinner, and the generous islanders 
By you invited, do attend your presence. 
Oth.. 1 am to blame. 
Des. Why is your speech so faint?*® are you not 
well? 
Oth. I have a pain upon my forehead here. 
Des. ’Faith, that’s with watching; ’twill away 
again : 
Let me but bind it hard, within this hour 
It will be well. 
Oth. Your napkin is too little :*" 
[He puts the Napkin from him, and it drops. 
Let it alone. Come, I'll go in with you. 
Des. 1 am very sorry that you are not well. 
[Exeunt Oru. and Des. 
Emil, Tam glad I have found this napkin. 
This was her first remembrance from the Moor: 
My wayward husband hath a hundred times 
Woo’d me to steal it;** but she so loves the token, 


* 


30 Thus both the quartos; the folio, “Why do you speak so 
Saintly ?” H. 

31 In the north of England this term for a handkerchief is still 
used. The word occurs in Macbeth, Julius Cesar, and other of 
these plays. 

32 Of course hundred is here used for an indefinite number ; 
still it shows that the unity of time is much less observed in this 
play than some have supposed. The play indeed seldom gives 
any note of the lapse of time, save by inference, as in the case 
before us. Thus far, only one night, since that of the marriage, 
has been expressly accounted for; and this was the night when 
the nuptials were celebrated, and Cassio cashiered ; though several 
must have passed during the sea-voyage. From Jago’s soliloquy 
at the close of Act i., it is clear he had his plot even then so far 


eee 
uy i ret 


Sc. III. THE MOOR OF VENICE. 491 


(For he conjur’d her she should ever keep it,) 
That she reserves it evermore about her, 

To kiss, and talk to. I'll have the work ta’en out,** 
And give ’t Iago: 

What he’ll do with it, Heaven knows, not I; 

I nothing, but to please his fantasy. 


Enter Taco. 


Iago. How now! what do you here alone? 

Emil. Do not you chide; I have a thing for you. 

Tago. A thing for me ?—it is a common thing, — 

Emil. Ha! 

Iago. 'To have a foolish wife. 

Email. O! is that all?) What will you give me now 
For that same handkerchief ? 

Lago. What handkerchief ? 

Emil. What handkerchief! 

Why, that the Moor first gave to Desdemona ; 
That which so often you did bid me steal. 

Jago. Hast stolen it from her? 

Emil. No, ’faith; she let it drop by negligence 3 
And, to th’ advantage, I, being here, took’t up. 
Look, here it is. 

Lago. A good wench; give it me. 

Emil. What will you do with’t, that you have 

been so earnest 
To have me filch it ? 


matured, that he might often woo his wife to stea] the handker- 
chief while at sea. Moreover, we may well enough suppose a 
considerable interval of time between the first and third scenes of 
the present Act; since Cassio may not have had the interview with 
Desdemona immediately after he engaged Emilia to solicit it for 
him. ; H. 

33 That is, copied. Her first thoughts are to have a copy made 
of it for her husband, and restore the original to Desdemona; but 
the sudden coming in of Jago, in a surly humour, makes her alter 
her resolution, to please him. 


492 OTHELLO, ACT III. 


Lago. Why, what’s that to you? 

[ Snatching tt 

Emil. Vf it be not for some purpose of import, 
Give’t me again: Poor lady! she’ll run mad, 
When she shall lack it. 

Tago. Be not acknown on’t;** I have use for it. 
Go, leave me. — [Exit Emiuta 
I will in Cassio’s lodging lose this napkin, 

And let him find it: trifles, light as air, 

Are to the jealous confirmations strong 

As proofs of holy writ. This may do something. 
The Moor already changes with my poison : 
Dangerous conceits are in their natures poisons, 
Which at the first are scarce found to distaste ; 
But, with a little act upon the blood, 

Burn like the mines of sulphur.—TI did say so;— 


Re-enter OTHELLO. 


Look, where he comes!** Not poppy, nor man- 
dragora, 

Nor all the drowsy syrups of the ‘world, 

Shall ever medicine thee to that sweet sleep 

Which thou ow’dst yesterday.*® 


34. The folio and the quarto of 1630 have acknown ; the other 
quarto reads, “Be not you known on’t.” The word occurs in 
Harrington’s Life of Ariosto, 1607: “Some say he was married to 
her privilie, but durst not be acknown of it.” Of course the means 
ing in the text is, “do not acknowledge it.””— The seventh line 
of this speech, « The Moor already changes with my poison,” is 
not in the first quarto. Both the other old copies have it. 4. 

35 That is, I knew the least touch of such a passion would not 
permit the Moor a moment of repose:—I have just said that 
jealousy is a restless commotion of the mind; and look, where 
Othello approaches, to confirm my observation. —STEEVENS. 

86 The mandrake has a soporifie quality, and the ancients used 
it when they wanted an opiate of the most powerful kind, See 
Antony and Cleopatra, Act i. se. 5, note 1.— Ow’dst for own’ dst ; 
an usage constantly occurring in old writers. 


Je 


ye 


Sc. III. '. THE MOOR OF VENICE. 493 


Oth. Ha! ha! false to me, to me?*” 

Tago. Why, bow now, general! no more of that 

Oth. Ayaunt! be gone! thou hast set me on the 

rack, — 
I swear, ’tis better to be much abus’d, 
Than but to know’t a little. 
Tago. How now, my lord! 
Oth. What sense had I of her stolen hours of 
lust 1 
I saw’t not, thought it not, it harm’d not me: 
I slept the next night well, was free and merry; 
I found not Cassio’s kisses on her lips: 
He that is robb’d, not wanting what is stolen, 
Let him not know’t, and he’s not robb’d at all. 

Tago. I am sorry to hear this. 

Oth. I had been happy, if the general camp, 
Pioneers and all,°* had tasted her sweet body, 
So I had nothing known. OQ, now, for ever, 
Farewell the tranquil mind! farewell content! 
Farewell the plumed troop, and the big wars, 
That make ambition virtue! O, farewell de 
Farewell the neighing steed, and the shrill trump, 


87 The repetition of to me is in both quartos, but not in the folio, 
It more than doubles the sense. H. 

38 Pioneers were generally degraded soldiers. —In the third 
line of Othello’s preceding speech, the folio inserts fed well, after 
the words, «I slept the next night well.” The insertion greatly 
mars both the sense and the metre of the line. Both quartos have 
it as in the text. The folio has several other slight variations in 
this part of the scene. H. 

39 There is some resemblance between this speech and the fol- 
owing lines in Peele’s « Farewell to the Famous and Fortunate 
Generals of our English Forces,” 1589: 


«Change love for armes; gyrt to your blades, my boyes ; 
Your rests and muskets take, take helme and targe, 
And let god Mars his trampet make you mirth, 

The roaring cannon, and the brazen trumpe, 
The angry-sounding drum, the whistling fife, 
The shriekes of men, the princelie courser’s ney.” 


VOLs |S 42 


494 OTHELLO, ACT III. 


The spirit-stirring drum, th’ ear-piercing fife,*° 
The royal banner, and all quality, 
Pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war! 
And, O!- you mortal engines, whose rude throats 
Th’ immortal Jove’s dread clamours counterfeit, 
Farewell! Othello’s occupation’s gone! 

Lago. 1s’t possible !— My lord, — 

Oth. Villain, be sure thou prove my love a 

whore ; 
Be sure of it: give me the ocular proof, 
[Seizing him by the Throat. 

Or, by the worth of mine eternal soul, 
Thou hadst been better have been born a dog, 
Than answer my wak’d wrath. 

10c0 Is’t come to this? 

Oth. Make me to see’t; or, at the least, so proveit, 
That the probation bear no hinge, nor loop, 
To hang a doubt on, or woe upon thy life ! 

Jago. My noble lord, — 

Oth. If thou dost slander her, and torture me, 
Never pray more: abandon all remorse ; *! 
On horror’s head horrors accumulate ; 
Do deeds to make heaven weep, all earth amaz’d 3 
For nothing canst thou to damnation add, 
Greater than that. 

Lago. . O grace! O Heaven, defend me! *? 


4° In mentioning the fife joined to the drum, Shakespeare, as 
usual, paints from life; those instruments, accompanying each 
other, being used in his age by the English soldiery. The Sife, 
however, as a martial instrament, was afterwards discontinued for 
many years, but at length revived by the British guards under the 
duke of Cumberland, when they were encamped before Maestricht 
in 1747, and thence soon adopted into other English regiments of 
infantry. They took it from the allies with whom they served. 
4! That is, all tenderness of nature, all pity 5 the sense in which 
remorse is most frequently used by Shakespeare. 
# Thus both quartos ; the folio has forgive instead of defend, 
’ H. 


2) ie ea aaa 


‘ 


sc. III == THE MOOR OF VENICE. 495 


Are you a man? have you a soul, or sense ?— 

God be wi’ you; take mine office. — O, wretched 

fool, 

That liv’st to make thine honesty a vice !— 

O, monstrous world! ‘Take note, take note, O 

world ! 

To be direct and honest, is not safe. — 

I thank you for this profit; and, from hence, 

I’ll love no friend, since love breeds such offence. 
Oth. Nay, stay: —Thou should’st be honest. 
Iago. 1 should be wise ; for honesty’s a fool, 

And loses that it works for. 

Oth. By the world, 

I think my wife be honest, and think she is not 3 

I think that thou art just, and think thou art not: 

I’ll have some proof. Her name, that was as fresh 

As Dian’s visage, is now begrim’d and black 

As mine own face. If there be cords, or knives, 

Poison, or fire, or suffocating streams, 

I'l] not endure it. — Would I were satisfied ! 

Tago. \ see, sir, you are eaten up with passion : 

I do repent me, that I put it to you. 

You would be satisfied ? 

Oth. Would! nay, I will. 
Jago. And may; but how? how satisfied, my 
lord? 

Would you the supervision grossly gape on? 

Behold her tupp’d ? 

Oth. Death and damnation! O! 
Tago. It were a tedious difficulty, I think, 

To bring them to that prospect. Damn them then, 

If ever mortal eyes do see them bolster, 

More than their own! What then? how then? 

What shall [ say? Where’s satisfaction? 

It is impossible you should see this, 


496 OTHELLO, 7 ACT ILI. 


Were they as prime as goats, as hot as monkeys, 

‘As salt as wolves in pride, and fools as gross 

As ignorance made drunk. But yet, I say, 

If imputation, and strong circumstances, 

Which lead directly to the door of truth, 

Will give you satisfaction, you may have’t. 
Oth. Give me a living reason she’s disloyal. 
Tago. \ do not like the office ; 

But, sith 1 am enter’d in this cause so far, 

Prick’d to’t by foolish honesty and love, 

I will go on. I lay with Cassio lately ; 

And, being troubled with a raging tooth, 

I could not sleep. 

There are a kind of men so loose of soul, 

That in their sleeps will mutter their affairs : 

One of this kind is Cassio. 

In sleep I heard him say, —“*Sweet Desdemona, 

Let us be wary, let us hide our loves!” 

And then, sir, would he gripe and wring my hand, 

Cry, «O, sweet creature!” and then kiss me hard, 

As if he pluck’d up kisses by the roots, 

That grew upon my lips: then laid his leg 

Over my thigh, and sigh’d, and kiss’d ; and then 

Cried, ‘«Cursed fate, that gave thee to the Moor!” 
Oth. O monstrous! monstrous ! 
Tago. Nay, this was but his dream. 
Oth. But this denoted a foregone conclusion : 

’Tis a shrewd doubt, though it be but a dream. 
Tago. And this may help to thicken other proofs, 

That do demonstrate thinly. | 
Oth. Ill tear her all to pieces. 
Tago. Nay, but be wise: yet we see nothing done ; 

She may be honest yet. Tell me but this: 

Have you not sometimes seen a handkerchief, 

Spotted with strawberries, in your wife’s hand? 


ee. 


3 


sc. Ill. THE MOOR OF VENICE. 497. 


Oth. I gave her such 4 one: ’twas my first gift. 
Tago. 1 know not that; but such a handkerchief 
(I am sure it was your wife’s) did I to-day 
See Cassio wipe his beard with. 
Oth. If it be that, — 
Jago. Vf it be that, or any that was hers, 
It speaks against her with the other proofs. 
Oth. O, that the slave had forty thousand lives! 
One is too poor, too weak for my revenge. 
Now do I see ‘tis true. — Look here, Iago 5 
All my fond love thus do I blow to heaven: 
*Tis gone. — 
Arise, black vengeance, from the hollow hell !* 
Yield up, O love! thy crown, and hearted throne, 
To tyrannous hate! swell, bosom, with thy fraught, 
For ’tis of aspics’ tongues ! “* 
Tago. Pray, be content. 
Oth. O, blood, Iago, blood! 
Iago. Patience, I say; your mind, perhaps, may 
change. 
Oth. Never, Iago. Like to the Pontick sea, 
Whose icy current and compulsive course 
Ne’er feels retiring ebb,** but keeps due on 


43 Thus the folios both quartos have cell, which is strangely 
preferred by several editors. To speak of a hollow cell as the 
abode of vengeance seems very tame. Besides, as Othello has 
just blown all his love to heaven, harmony of thought and language 
seems to require that he should invoke revenge from hell. Read- 
ers of Milton will be apt to remember, “He call’d so loud, that 
all the hollow deep of hell resounded ;’’ and, “ The universal host 
sent up a shout that tore hell’s concave.” ‘Hy. 

44 That is, swell, because the fraught thou art charged with is 
of poison. 

45 Thus the quarto of 1630: the folio has keeps instead of feels, 
the word having most likely got repeated in the printer’s hands. 
Pope, without any knowledge of the text of 1630, conjectured that 
jt should be feels. Mr. Collier’s second folio has knows, which 
would answer equally well, provided it had any authority. The 


42 * 32 


, 


498 OTHELLO, ACT III. 


To the Propontick, and the Hellespont ; 
Even so my bloody thoughts, with violent pace, 
Shall ne’er look back, ne’er ebb to humble love, 
Till that a capable and wide revenge *° 
Swallow them up.— Now, by yond’ marble hea- 
ven, 

In the due reverence of a sacred vow _ [ Kneeling. 
I here engage my words. 

Lago. Do not rise yet. — [ Kneeling. 
Witness, you ever-burning lights ahove ! 
You elements that clip us round about ! 
Witness, that here Iago doth give up 
The execution of his wit,*’ hands, heart, 
To wrong’d Othello’s service! let him command, 
And to. obey ‘shall be in me remorse, 
What bloody work soe’er.*® 

Oth. I greet thy love, 
Not with vain thanks, but with acceptance boun- 

teous, 

And will upon the instant put thee to’t : 
Within these three days let me hear thee say, 
That Cassio’s not alive. 


passage begmning with Jago, and ending with swallow them up, 
is not in the quarto of 1622. — Pliny’s Natural History, 1601, may 
have furnished the illustration: « And the sea Pontus evermore 
floweth and runneth out into Propontis; but the sea never retireth 
backe againe within Pontus.” H. 

46 Capable is here used for capacious, comprehensive. So 
Nashe, in his Pierce Pennilesse, 1592: “Then belike, quoth T, 
you make this word, Demon, a capable name, of gods, of men, 
of devils.” : 

47 The first quarto reads excellency. By execution Shakespeare 
meant employment or exercise. So in Troilus and Cressida: “In 
fellest manner execute your arms.” 

48 The folio reads, « What bloody business ever.’”? —'The Poet 
commonly uses remorse in the sense of pity. The meaning here 
is, “Let him command what bloody work he will, in me it shall 
be an act, not of cruelty, but of pity or commiseration, to obey.” 

H, 


mee 
"vk oe 


sc. Iv. THE MOOR OF VENICE. 499 


Tago. My friend is dead; ’tis done, at your re- 
quest : 
But let her live. 
Oth. Damn her, lewd minx! O, damn her, damn 
her ! *° 
Come, go with me apart; I will withdraw, 
To furnish me with some swift means of death 
For the fair devil. Now art thou my lieutenant. 


Tago. 1 am your own for ever. [ Exeunt. 


SCENE IV. ‘The Same. 


Enter Despemona, Emtuia, and the Clown. 


Des. Do you know, sirrah, where lieutenant Cas- 
sio lies ? 

Clo. I dare not say, he lies any where. 

Des. Why, man ? 

Clo. He is a soldier; and for me to say a soldier 
lies, is stabbing. 

Des. Go to: Where lodges he? 

Clo. To tell you where he lodges, is to tell you 
where I lie.’ } 

Des. Can any thing be made of this? 

Clo. 1 know not where he lodges; and for me to 
devise a lodging, and say, he lies here, or he lies 
there, were to lie in mine own throat. 

Des. Can you inquire him out, and be edified by 
report ? 

Clo. I will catechize the world for him; that is, 
make questions, and by them answer.” 


49 The repetition of « damn her” is found only in the folio. It 
helps to give the idea of passion “ wreaking upon expression,” yet 
wanting words. H. 

1 This and the next speech are not in the first quarto. 

2 That is, and by them, when answered, form my own answer 
to yor, The quaintness of the answer is in character. 


/ 


590 OTHELLO, ACT JIL 


Des. Seek him; bid him come hither: tell him, J 
have mov’d my lord in his behalf, and hope all will 
be well. 

Clo. To do this, is within the compass of man’s 
wit; and therefore I will attempt the doing it. 

[ Exit. 

Des. Where should I lose that handkerchief, 

Emilia ? 

Emil. I know not, madam.’ 

Des. Believe me, I had rather have lost my purse © 
Full of cruzadoes:* and, but-my noble Moor 
Is true of mind, and made of no such baseness 
As jealous creatures are, it were enough 
To put him to ill thinking. 

Emil. Is he not jealous ? 


3 Objection has been made to the conduct of Emilia in this 
scene, as inconsistent with the spirit she afterwards shows. We can 
discoyer no such inconsistency. Want of principle and strength 
of attachment are often thus seen united. Emilia loves her mis- 
tress deeply ; but she has no moral repugnance to theft and false- 
hood, apprehends no fatal consequences from the Moor’s passion, 
and has no soul to conceive the agony her mistress must suffer 
by the charge of infidelity ; and it is but natural, that when the 
result comes she should be the more spirited for the very re- 
membrance of her own guilty part in the process. It is the see~ 
ing of the end, that rouses such people, and rouses them all the 
more that themselves have served as means. “Emilia,” says Mrs. 
Jameson, “is a perfect portrait from common life, a masterpiece 
in the Flemish style: and, though not necessary as a contrast, it 
cannot be but that the thorough vulgarity, the loose principles of 
this plebeian woman, united to a high spirit, energetic feeling, 
strong sense, and low cunning, serve to place in brighter relief the 
exquisite refinement, the moral grace, the unblemished truth, and 
the soft submission of Desdemona.” H. 

4 Cruzadoes were not current, as it should seem, at Venice, 
though they certainly were in England, in the time of Shakespeare. 
It appears from Rider’s Dictionary that there were three sorts of 
cruzadoes: one with a long cross, one with a short cross, and the 
great crazado of Portugal. They were of gold, and differed in 
value from six shillings and eightpence to nine shillings. 


Se thie « 
ae 


SC. IV. THE MOOR OF VENICE. 501 


Des. Who, he? I think the sun, where he was 
born, 
Drew all such humours from him. 
Emil. Look, where he comes. 
Des. I will not leave him now, till Cassio 
Be call’d to him. — How is’t with you, my lord? 


Enter OTHELLO. 
Oth. Well, my good lady. —[Aside.] O, hard- 


ness to dissemble ! — 
How do you, Desdemona ? 
Des. Well, my good lord. 
Oth. Give me your hand. This hand is moist, 
my lady. 
Des. It yet has felt no age, nor known no sorrow. 
Oth. This argues fruitfulness, and liberal heart. 
Hot, hot, and moist: this hand of yours requires 
A sequester from liberty, fasting and prayer, 
Much castigation, exercise devout ; 
For here’s a young and sweating devil here, 
That commonly rebels. "Tis a good hand 3 
A frank one. 
Des. You may, indeed, say so; 
For ’twas that hand that gave away my heart. 
Oth. A liberal hand: The hearts of old, gave 
hands ; 
But our new heraldry is— hands, not hearts.’ 


5 Several have thought this “new heraldry”’ to be a satirical 
allusion to the bloody hand borne on the arms of the new order of 
baronets, created by James I. in 1611. Malone, with more prob- 
ability, quotes, in illustration of the text, the following from the 
Essays of Sir William Cornwallis, 1601: “We of these later 
times, full of a nice curiositie, mislike all the performances of our 
forefathers ; we say they were honest plaine men, but they want 
the capering wits of this ripe age.. They had wont to give their 
hands and hearts together, but we think it a finer grace to looka 
asquint, our hand looking one way and our heart unother.” 

H. 


, 


502 OTHELLO, ACT III. 


Des. I cannot speak of this. Come now, your 
promise. 
Oth. What promise, chuck ? 
Des. I have sent to bid Cassio come speak with 
you. 
Oth. I have a salt and sullen rheum offends me: ® 
Lend me thy handkerchief. 
Des. Here, my lord. 
_ Oth. That which I gave you. 
Des. I have it not about me. 
Oth. Not? 
Des. No, indeed, my lord. 
Oth. This is a fault. That handkerchief 
Did an Egyptian to my mother give; 
She was a charmer,’ and could almost read 
The thoughts of people: she told her, while she 
kept it 
"T'would make her amiable, and subdue my father 
Entirely to her love ; but, if she lost it, 
Or made a gift of it, my father’s eye 
Should hold her loathed, and his spirits should hunt 
After new fancies. She, dying, gave it me; _ 
And bid me,.when my fate would have me wive, 
To give it her. I did so: and take heed on’t ; 


§ Thus both quartos ; the folio, “sorry rheum.” It is not easy 
to choose between the two epithets. H. 

7 A charmer is used for an enchanter in the Psalms. So in 
Perkins’s Discourse on Witchcraft, 1610: “ By witches we under- 
stand not only those which kill and torment, but all charmers, jug- 
glers, all wizards, commonly called wise men and wise women.” 

8 Of course her refers to the noun implied in wire. See All’s 
Well that Ends Well, Act ii. se. 3, note 13. —In the last scene of 
the play, Othello speaks of the handkerchief as “an antique token 
my father gave my mother.” This has been thought an oversight 5 
Steevens regards it as a fresh proof of the Poet’s art. “ The first 
account,” says he, “was purposely ostentatious, in order to alarm 
his wife the more. When he again mentions it, the truth was suaf- 
ficient.” We must add a remark from Mrs. Jameson: “ This 


7 SC. IV. THE MOOR OF VENICE. 503 


Make it a darling like your precious eye ; 
To lose’t or give’t away, were such perdition, 
As nothing else could match. ' 
Des. Is’t possible ? 
Oth. ’Tis true: there’s magic in the web of it. 
A sibyl, that had number’d in the world 
The sun to course two hundred compasses, 
In her prophetic fury sew’d the work ; 
The worms were hallow’d, that did breed the silk ; 
And it was dy’d in mummy,’ which the skilful 
Conserv’d of maidens’ hearts. 
Des. Indeed ! is’t true? 
Oth. Most veritable ; therefoye look to’t well. 
Des. Then, would to Heaven that I had never 
seen’t ! 
Oth. Ha! wherefore? 
Des. Why do you speak so startingly and rash? 
Oth. Is’t lost? is’t gone? speak, is it out o’the 
way? 
Des. Heaven bless us ! 
Oth. Say you? 
Des. It is not lost; but what an if it were? 
Oth. Ha! 
Des. I say it is not lost. 
Oth. Fetch’t, let me see’t. 


handkerchief, in the original story of Cinthio, is merely one of 
those embroidered handkerchiefs which were as fashionable in 
Shakespeare’s time as in our own; but the minute description of 
it as ‘Javorato alla morisco sottilissimamente,’ which in English 
means nothing more than that the pattern was what we now call 
arabesque, suggested to the poetical fancy of Shakespeare one of 
the most exquisite and characteristic passages in the whole play. 
Othello makes poor Desdemona believe that the handkerchief was 
a talisman.” H. 

9 The balsamic liquor runn:ag from mummies was formerly 
celebrated for its anti-epileptic virtues. It was much coveted by 
painters, as a transparent brown colour that threw a warmth into 
the shadows of a picture. ° 


504 OTHELLO, ACT III 


Des. Why, so I can, sir; but I will not now. - 
This is a trick, to put me from my suit: 
I pray, let Cassio be receiv’d again. 

Oth. Fetch me that handkerchief: my mind mis- 

gives. 

Des. Come, come; 
You'll never meet a more sufficient man. 

Oth. The handkerchief, — 


Des. I pray, talk me of Cassio.’ 
Oth. The handkerchief, — 
Des. A man that, all his time, 


Hath founded his good fortune on your love ; 
Shar’d dangers with you ;— 


Oth. ~The handkerchief, — 
Des. In sooth, you are to blanie. 
Oth. Away ! [Exit OTHELLO. 


Emil. Is not this man jealous? 

Des. 1 ne’er saw this before. 

Sure, there’s some wonder in this handkerchief : 
I am most unhappy in the loss of it. 

Emil. *Tis not a year or two shows us a man: 
They are all but stomachs, and we all but food ; 
They eat us hungerly, and when they are full, 
They belch us. “Look you! Cassio, and my hus- 

band. 


Enter Taco and Cassio. 


Iago. There is no other way ; ’tis she must do’t: 
And, lo, the happiness! go, and importune her. 
Des. How now, good Cassio! what’s the news 
with you? 
Cas. Madam, my former suit. I do beseech you, 


10 This speech and the next are found only in the quarto of 
1622. —“ Talk me of Cassio,” is the same phraseology as in 
Falstaff’s account of sack: “It ascends me into the brain.” 

H 


eee — a aes 
It i 


SCs IV. . THE MOOR OF VENICE. 505 


That by your virtuous means I may again 

Exist, and be a member of his love, 

Whom J, with all the office of my heart, 

Entirely honour: I would not be delay’d. 

If my offence be of such mortal kind, 

That neither service past, nor present sorrows, 

Nor purpos’d merit in futurity, 

Can ransom me into his love again, 

But to know so must be my benefit : 

So shall I clothe me in a fore’d content, 

And shut myself up in some other course, 

To fortune’s alms.” 

Des. Alas! thrice-gentle Cassio, 

My advocation is not now in tune ; 

My lord is not my lord; nor should I know him, 

Were he in favour, as in humour, alter’d. 

So help mie every spirit sanctified, 

As I have spoken for you all my best, 

And stood within the blank of his displeasure,’’ 

For my free speech. You must awhile be patient 

What I can do, I will; and more I will, 

Than for myself I dare: let that suffice you. 
Tago. Is my lord angry? welt 
Emil. He went hence but now 

And, certainly, in strange unquietness. 

Tago. Can he be angry ?- I have seen the cannon 

When it hath blown his ranks into the air ; 

And, like the devil, from his very, arm 


11 Thus the folio and the quarto of 1630: the other quarto has 
shoot instead of shut. Mr. Collier’s second folio, with some plau- 
sibility, changes the text to “ shift myself upon some other course.” 
‘Shut myself up evidently means the same as confine myself, so that 
the sense is apt and clear enough. H. 

2 The blank is the white spot of a mark, at which the shots 
are aimed. So that to stand within the blank is to stand directly 
before the aim. H. 


VOL. X; 43 


) 


206 OTHELLO, ACT ITI. 


Puff’d his own brother ; — and can he be angry 1" 
Something of moment, then: I will go meet him: 
‘There’s matter in’t indeed, if he be angry. 
Des. I pr’ythee, do so. —Something, sure, of 
state, — [ Exit Laco. 
Kither from Venice, or some unhatch’d practice, 
Made demonstrable here in Cyprus to him, — 
Hath puddled his clear spirit; and, in such cases, 
Men’s natures wrangle with inferior things, 
Though great ones are their object. "Tis even so 3 
For let our finger ache, and it indues 
Our other healthful members even to that sense 
Of pain: Nay, we must think, men are not gods; 
Nor of them look for such observances 
As fit the bridal. — Beshrew me much, Emilia, 
I was (unhandsome warrior as I am) 
Arraigning his unkindness with my soul; 
But now I find I had suborn’d the witness, 
And he’s indited falsely. 
Emil. Pray Heaven, it be state matters, as you 
think ; . 
And no conception, nor no jealous toy," 
Concerning you. 
Des. Alas, the day! I never gave him cause. 
Emil. But jealous souls will not be answer’d so 3 
‘They are not ever jealous for the cause, 
Bat jealous for they’re jealous: ’tis a monster, 
Begot upon itself, born on itself. 
Des. Heaven keep that monster from Othello’s 
mind ! 
Emil. Lady, amen. 
Des. I will go seek him.— Cassio, walk here- 
about : 
13 The folio reads, “and is he angry 1” H, 


4 A toy is a fancy, or any fond trifle that one entertains him. 
self with. ae H. 


SC. IV. | THE MOOR OF VENICE. 507 


If I do find him fit, ’ll move your suit, 
And seek to effect it to my uttermost. 
Cas. I humbly thank your ladyship. 
[Exeunt Despemona and EMILIA. 


Enter BIANCA. 


Bian. Save you, friend Cassio ! 

Cas. What make you from home ?”* 
How is it with you, my most fair Bianca? 
[’faith, sweet love, I was coming to your house. 

Bian. And I was going to your lodging, Cassio. 
What! keep a week away ? seven days and nights ? 
Eight score eight hours? and lovers’ absent hours, 
More tedious than the dial eight score times ? 
O, weary reckoning ! °° 

Cas. Pardon me, Bianca; 
I have this while with leaden thoughts been press’d 5 
But I shall, in a more continuate time,’” 
Strike off this score of absence. Sweet Bianca, 

[Giving her Despemona’s Handkerchief. 

Take me this work out.’® 

Bian. _ O, Cassio! whence came this ? 
This is some token from a newer friend. 


15 That is, “ What do you from home?” We have repeatedly 
met with the same phraseology. H. 

16 Jt would seem, by this, that seven days at least have elapsed 
since Cassio was cashiered ; perhaps much more, as the “leaden 
thoughts” may have been kept off for some time by the hopes 
built upon Desdemona’s promise of intercession, and brought on 
again by the unexpected delay. See Act iti. sc. 3, note 32. H. 

17 « Continuate time” is time uninterrupted. The quarto of 
1622 has convenient. H. 

18 That is, copy this work in another handkerchief. See Act 
ii. se. 3, note 33. Se in Middleton’s Women beware Women: 
« She intends to take out other works in a new sampler.” Again 
in the Preface to Holland’s Pliny, 1601: « Nicopbanes gave his 
mind wholly to antique pictures, partly to exemplify and take out 
patterns, after that in long continuance of time they were de- 
cayed.” 


) 


508 OTHELLO, ACT III. 


To the felt absence now I feel a cause: 
Is’t come to this? Well, well. 
Cas. Go to, woman! 
Throw your vile guesses in the devil’s teeth, 
From whence you have them. You are jealous now 
That this is from some mistress, some remembrance : 
No, in good troth, Bianca. 
Bian. Why, whose is it? 
Cas. I know not, sweet: I found it in my cham- 
ber. | 
I like the work well; ere it be demanded, 
(As like enough it will,) I’?d have it copied : 
Take it, and do’t; and leave me for this time. 
Bian. Leave you! wherefore ? 
Cas. I do attend here on the general ; 
And think it no addition, nor my wish, 
‘To have him see me woman’d. 


Bian. Why, I pray you?’® 
Cas. Not that I love you not. | 
Bian. But that you do not love me. 


I pray you, bring me on the way a little ; 
And say, if I shall see you soon at night. 
Cas. "Tis but a little way, that I can bring you, 
For I attend here; but I’ll see you soon. 
Bian. "Vis very good: I must be circumstane’d.” 
[ Exeunt. 


19 This and the next speech are wanting in the first quarto. 
#0 Probably meaning, “I must yield to circumstances.” 4H. 


s 


id yy gn hus aa ae 


THE MOOR OF VENICE. 509 


& 


FAC ILAR AE 


SCENE I. Before the Castle. 


Enter OTHELLO and Taco. 


Tago. Will you think so? 
Oth. Think go, Iago? 
Tago. What! to kiss in private ? 
Oth. An unauthoris’d kiss. 
Tago. Or to be naked with her friend a-bed, 
An hour or more, not meaning any harm ? 
Oth. Naked a-bed, Jago, and not mean harm ? 
It is hypocrisy against the devil :' 
They that mean virtuously, and yet do so, 
The devil their virtue tempts, and they tempt Heaven.” 
Tago. If they do nothing, ’tis a venial slip: 
But if I give my wife a handkerchief, — 
Oth. What then ? 
Tago. Why, then ’tis hers, my lord; and, being 
hers, 
She may, I think, bestow’t on any man. 
Oth. She is protectress of her honour too: 
May she give that? 


1 We must suppose that Iago had been applying cases of false 
comfort to Othello ; as that, though the parties had been even found 
in bed together, there might be no harm done’: it might be only for 
trial of their virtue; as was reported of the Romish saint, Robert 
D’Arbrissel, and his nuns. — WARBURTON. 

2 The devil tempts their tirtue by stirring up their passions, and 
they tempt heaven by placing themselves in a situation which makes 
it searcely possible to avoid falling by the gratification of them. 
Perhaps the story of St. Adhelm, related in Bale’s Actes of Eng- 
lysh Votaries, is referred to: « This Adhelmus never refused wo- 
men, but wold have them commonly both at borde and bedde, ta 
mocke the devy]l with.” 


43 * 


) 


510 OTHELLO, ACT IV. 


Jago. Her honour is an essence that’s not seen ; 
They have it very oft, that have it not: 
But, for the handkerchief, — 
Oth. By Heaven, f would most ani have for- 
got it. 
Thou said’st— O! it comes o’er my memory, 
As doth the raven o’er the infected house, 
Boding to all*— he had my handkerchief. 
Tago. Ay, what of that? 
Oth. That’s not so send! now. 
Lago. What, if T had Bald I had seen him do you 
wrong? 
Or heard Pact say, —as knaves be such abroad, 
Who, having by their own importunate suit, 
Or voluntary dotage of some mistress, 
Convinced or aimpliel them,* cannot choose 
But they must blab— _~ 
Oth. Hath he said any thing? 
ago. He hath, my lord; but, be you well assur’d, 
No more than he’ll unswear. 
Oth. What hath he said ? 
Lago. ’Faith, that he did, —I know not what he did. 
Oth. What? what? 


Lago. Lie — 
Oth. With her? 
Tago. With her, on her; what you will. 


Oth. Lie with her! lie on her! — We say, lie on 
her, when they belie her. Lie with her! that’s ful- 
some. — Handkerchief, — confessions, — handker- 
chief.°— To confess, and be hang’d for his labour. 


3 The raven was thought to be a constant attendant on a house 
infected with the plague. — The folio has “infectious house.” 

4 That is, having either conquered her reluctance or complied 
with her wish. The proper meaning of convince is conte or 
overcome. 

§ What follows of this speech is wanting in the quarto of 1632, 

H. 


» . 4 ie 
i 


SC. I. THE MOOR OF VENICE. oil 


— First, to be hang’d, and then to confess: —I 
tremble at it. Nature would not invest herself in 
such shadowing passion, without some instruction. 
It is not words, that shake me thus.°— Pish!— 
Noses, ears, and lips.—Is it possible ?— Confess ! 
— Handkerchief! — O devil!’ [Falls in a Trance* 


6 This passage has called forth a large fund of critical inge- 
nuity. Dr. Johnson explains it thus: “There has always prevailed 
in the world an opinion, that when any great calamity happens at 
a distance, notice is given of it to the sufferer by some dejection 
or perturbation of mind, of which he discovers no external cause. 
This is ascribed to that general communication of one part of the 
universe with another, which is called sympathy and antipathy 3 
or to the secret monition, instruction, and influence of a superior 
Being, which superintends the order of nature and of life. Othello 
says, ‘ Nature would not invest herself in such shadowing passion, 
without some instruction: It is not words that shake me thus.” 
This passion, which spreads its clouds over me, is the effect of 
some agency more than the operation of words: it is one of those 
notices which men have of unseen calamities.” — The explanation 
given by Sir Joshua Reynolds is, that Othello does not here refer 
to any feelings of his own, but to the story of Cassio’s dream, 
which Iago has fabricated and told him ; and of which Othello has 
already said, “ But this denoted a foregone conclusion ;’’ meaning, 
of course, that Cassio’s dream was but an involuntary remembrance 
and repetition of what he had actually done before. So that the 
sense may be given something thus: “ Nature would not in Cassio 
clothe herself in such shadowing passion, or would not give ‘out 
such adumbrations of passion, without some former experience, or 
the instruction of some foregoing fact.””— Either of these ex- 
planations may be right, and it is not easy to choose between them 3 
though we rather incline to the latter: for, as Sir Joshua says, 
«“ Othello, in broken sentences and single words, all of which have 
a reference to the cause of his jealousy, shows that all the proofs 
‘are present at once to his mind, which so overpower it that he falls 
into 2 *rance, — the natural consequencé.” H. 

‘ «The starts,” says Warburton, “and broken reflections in 
this speech have something in them very terrible, and show the 
mind of the speaker to be in inexpressible agonies.” — The trance 
is thus justified by Sir Joshua Reynolds: « When many confused 
and very interesting ideas pour in upon the mind all at once, and 
with such rapidity that it has not time to shape or digest them, if 
it does not relieve itself by tears, (which we know it often does, 
whether for joy or grief,) it produces stupefaction and fainting.” 

H. 


; 


512 OTHELLO, | ACT IV° 


Jago. Work on, 
My medicine, work! Thus credulous fools are 
caught ; 
And many worthy and chaste dames, even thus, 
All guiltless, meet reproach.— What, ho! my lord! 


Enter Cassio. : 


My lord, I say ! Othello !—Tow now, Cassio ! 
Cas. What is the matter ? 
Tago. My lord is fallen into an epilepsy : 
This is his second fit; he had one yesterday. 
Cas. Rub him about the temples. 
Tago. No, forbear :* 
The lethargy must have his quiet course ; 
If not, he foams at mouth, and, by and by, 
Breaks out to savage madness. Look, he stirs: 
Do you withdraw yourself a little while ; 
He will recover straight: when he is gone, 
I would on great occasion speak with you. — 
[ Exit Cassio. 
How is it, general! have you not hurt your head? 
Oth. Dost thou mock me ? 
Tago. I mock you! no, by Heaven. 
Would you would bear your fortunes like a man. 
Oth. A horned man’s a monster, and a beast. 
Iago. There’s many a beast, then, in a populous 
city, 
And many a civil monster. 
Oth. Did he confess it ? 
Tago. Good sir, be a man: 
Think, every bearded fellow, that’s but yok’d, 
May draw with you; there’s millions now alive, 
That nightly lie in those unproper beds? 


8 These words are in both quartos, but not in the folio. 
8 That is, beds not their own, not peculiar, common.— Secure 


A 


sc. L THE MOOR Of VENICE. 518 


Which they dare swear peculiar: your case is bet- 
ter. 
O! ’tis the spite of hell, the fiend’s arch-mock, 
To lip a wanton in a secure couch, 
And to suppose her chaste. No, let me know; 
And, knowing what I am, I know what she shall be. 
Oth. O! thou art wise ; ‘tis certain. 
Iago. Stand you awhile apart ; 
Confine yourself but in a patient list.”® 
Whilst you were here, o’erwhelmed with your grief, 
(A passion most unsuiting such a man,) 
Cassio came hither: I shifted him away, 
And laid good ’scuse upon your ecstasy ; 
Bade him anon return, and here speak with me ; 
The which he promis’d. Do but encave yourself, 
And mark the fleers, the gibes, and notable scorns, 
That dwell in every region of his face ; 
For I will make him tell the tale anew, 
Where, how, how oft, how long ago, and when 
He hath, and is again to cope your wife: 
I say, but mark his gesture. Marry, patience ; 
Or I shall say, you’re all in all in spleen, 
And nothing of a man. 
Oth. Dost thou hear, Iago ? 
I will be found most cunning in my patience ; 
But (dost thou hear?) most bloody. 
Tago. That’s not amiss ; 
But yet keep time in all. Will you withdraw ? — 
[OTHELLO withdraws. 
Now will I question Cassio of Bianca, 
A housewife that, by selling her desires, 
Buys herself bread and clothes: it is a creature 


third line after, is used in its Latinsense. See Hamlet, Act i. se. 
5, note 5. H. 
” That is, within the bounds of patience. 
35 


} 


514 OTHELLO, | ACT IV 


That dotes on Cassio; as ’tis the strumpet’s plague, 
To beguile many, and be beguil’d by one. 
He, when he hears of her, cannot refrain 
From the excess of laughter ! — Here he comes: -— 


Re-enter Cassio. 


As he shall smile, Othello shall go mad ; 
And his unbookish"? jealousy must construe 
Poor Cassio’s smiles, gestures, and light behaviour 
Quite in the wrong. — How do you now, lieutenant ! 
Cas. The worser, that you give me the addition, 
Whose want even kills me. 
Iago. Ply Desdemona well, and you are sure on’t. 
Now, if this suit lay in Bianca’s power, 
[ Speaking lower. 
How quickly should you speed ? 
Cas. Alas, poor caitiff ! 
Oth. [Aside.] Look, how he laughs already ! 
Tago. I never knew a woman love man so. 
Cas. Alas, poor rogue! I think, i’faith, she loves 
me. | 
Oth. [Aside.] Now he denies it faintly, and mane 
it out. 
Iago. Do you hear, Cassio ? 
Oth. [Aside.] Now he importunes him 
To tell it o’er. Go to; well said, well said. 
Tago. She gives it out that you shall marry her: 
Do you intend it? 
Cas. Ha, ha, ha! 
Oth. [Aside.] Do you triumph, Roman? do you 
triumph ?*” 
Cas. 1 marry her?— what! a customer? I pr’y- 


11 Unbookish for ignorant. 
12 Othello calls him Roman ironically. Triumph brought Ro- 
man into his thoughts. 


sc. I. THE MOOR OF VENICE. 515 


thee, bear some charity to my wit; do not think it 
so unwholesome. Ha, ha, ha! 

Oth. [ Aside. | So, so, so, so: They laugh that 

win. 

Tago. ’Faith, the cry goes, that you shall marry 
her. 

Cas. Pr’ythee, say true. 

Tago. Y am a very villain else. 

Oth. [Aside.| Have you scor’d me?'* Well. 

Cas. This is the monkey’s own giving out: she 
is persuaded I will marry her, out of her own love 
and flattery, not out of my promise. 

Oth. [Aside.] Iago beckons me: now he begins 

the story. 

Cas. She was here even now; she haunts me in 
every place. I was, the other day, talking on the 
sea-bank with certain Venetians; and thither comes 
this bauble, and, by this hand,"* falls me thus about 
my neck ; 

Oth. Aside. ] Crying, O, dear Cassio! as it were: 
his gesture imports it. 

Cas. So hangs, and lolls, and weeps upon me ; 
so hales, and pulls me: ha, ha, ha! — 

Oth. [Aside.] Now he tells, how she pluck’d him 
to my chamber. ~O! I see that nose of yours, but 
not that dog I shall throw it to. 

Cas. Well, 1 must leave her company. 


13 The particular force of scor’d in this place is not apparent. 
Its general meaning is to cut, mark, or engrave ; which has. no 
clear coherence with the context here. The nearest we can come 
to it, is by a line in Parolles’ letter, All’s Well that Ends Well, 
Act iv. sc. 3; “After he scores, he never pays the score 5” — 
where the word seems to be used in a sense that will bear a very 
intelligible application here. What that sense is, will be best 
gathered from the context there. See vol. iii., pages 353- 

H. 

14 The words, “by this hand,” are not in the folio. H. 


516 OTHELLO, bits ACT IV 


Iago. Before me! look where she comes. 


Enter BIANCA. 


Cas. "Tis such another fitchew!'* marry, a per- 
fum’d one. — What do you mean by this haunting 
of me? 

Bian. Wet the devil and his dam haunt you! 
What did you mean by that same handkerchief, you 
gave me even now? I was a fine fool to take it. I 
must take out the work ?— A likely piece of work, 
that you should find it in your chamber, and not 
know who left it there! -This is some minx’s token 5. 
and I must take out the work! ‘There; give it 
your hobby-horse: wheresoever you had it, I’ll take 
out no work on’t. 

Cas. How now, my sweet Bianca! how now, 
how now! 

Oth. [Aside.] By Heaven, that should be my 

handkerchief. 

Bian.” An you'll come to supper to-night, you 
may: an you will not, come when you are next 
prepar’d for. , [ Exit. 

Jago. After her, after her. 

Cas. ’Faith, I must; she’ll rail in the street else. 

Iago. Will you sup there ? 

Cas. ’Faith, I intend so. 

Tago. Well, I may chance to see you; for I 
would very fain speak with you. 

Cas. Pr’ythee, come; will you? 

Tago. Go to; say no more. [ Exit Cassio. 

Oth. How shall I murder him, Iago? 

Iago. Did you perceive how he laugh’d at his 
vice ? 

15 Shakespeare has alluded to the lust of this animal in King 


Lear. Cassio tells Iago that. Bianca is as lewd, but of a better 
scent, the polecat being a very unfragrant animal. 


sc. L THE MOOR OF VENICE. - 617 


Oth. O, Iago! 

Tago. And did you see the handkerchief ? 

Oth. Was that mine ? 

Iago. Yours, by this hand: and to see how he 
prizes the foolish woman your wife! she gave it 
him, and he hath given it his whore. 

Oth. I would have him nine years a-killing. — A 
fine woman! a fair woman! a sweet woman! 

Tago. Nay, you must forget that. 

Oth. Ay, let her rot, and perish, and be damn’d 
to-night, for she shall not live. No, my heart is 
turn’d to stone; I strike it, and it hurts my hand. 
O! the world hath not a sweeter creature ; she might 
lie by an emperor’s side, and command him tasks. 

Jago. Nay, that’s not your way. 

Oth. Hang her! I do but say what she is.— So 
delicate with her needle !— An admirable musician ! 
O, she will sing the savageness out of a bear !— 
Of so high and plenteous wit and inyention ! — 

Tago. She’s the worse for all this. 

Oth. O,a thousand thousand times !_. And then, 
of so gentle a condition ! 

Tago. Ay, too gentle. 

Oth. Nay, that’s certain: —but yet the pity of it, 
Iago! —O, Iago! the pity of it, Iago! 

Iago. If you are so fond over her iniquity, give 
her patent to offend ; for, if it touch not you, it 
comes near nobody. 

Oth. I will chop her into messes ! — Cuckold me ! 

Tago. O! ’tis foul in her. 

Oth. With mine officer ! 

Jago. That’s fouler. | 

Oth. Get me some poison, Iago; this night : — 
I'll not expostulate with her, lest her body and beau 
ty unprovide my mind again. This night, Iago. 

VOL. X. Af 


518 OTHELLO, ~ 7 ACT IV 


Iago. Do it not with poison; strangle her in her 
bed, even the bed she hath contaminated. 
Oth. Good, good! the justice of it pleases; very 
good. 
fago. And, for Cassio, —let me be his under- 
taker. You shall hear more by midnight. 
[A TLrumpet within. 
Oth. Excellent good!— What trumpet is that 


same ? 

Jago. Something from Venice, sure.—’Tis Lo- 
dovico, 

Come from the Duke ; and, see, your wife is with 


him.'® 
Enter Lovovico, Despemona, and Attendants. 


Lod. ’Save you, worthy general ! 
Oth. With all my heart, sir. 
Lod. 'The Duke and senators of Venice greet you. 
[Gives him a Packet. 
Oth. I kiss the instrument of their pleasures. 
[Opens the Packet and reads. 
Des. And what’s the news, good cousin Lodo- 
vico? 
Tago. I am very glad to see you, signior: 
Welcome to Cyprus. 
Lod. I thank you. How does lieutenant Cassio ? 
Lago. Lives, sir. 
Des. Cousin, there’s fall’n between him and my 
lord 
An unkind breach; but you shall make all well. 


16 This is the reading of both quartos: the folio gives the speech 
thus : 
“T warrant, something from Venice : . 
’Tis Lodovico this, comes from the Duke. 
See, your wife’s with him.” H. 


SC. I. THE MOOR OF VENICE. 519 


Oth. Are you sure of that? 

Des. My lord? 

Oth. [Reading.| «This fail you not to do, as you 

will”? — 

Lod. He did not call; he’s busy in the paper. 
Is there division ’twixt my lord and Cassio ? 

Des. A most unhappy one: I would do much 
T atone them,!” for the love I bear to Cassio. 

Oth. Fire and brimstone! 

Des. My lord? 

Oth. Are you wise? 

Des. What! is he angry? 

Lod. May be, the letter mov’d him; 

For, as I think, they do command him home, 
Deputing Cassio in his government. 

Des. By my troth, I am glad on’t. 

Oth. Indeed ! 

Des. My lord ? 

Oth. I am glad to see you mad. 

Des. How, sweet Othello? 

Oth. Devil! [Striking her. 

Des. I have not deserv’d this. 

Lod. My lord, this would not be believ’d in Venice, 
Though I should swear I saw’t: "Tis very much ; 
Make her amends, she weeps. 

Oth. O devil, devil! 

If that the earth could teem with woman’s tears, 
Each drop she falls would prove a crocodile.’®* — 
Out of my sight ! . 


17 That is, make them one, reconcile them. See Antony and 
Cleopatra, Act ii. sc. 2, note 13. 

18 «Tf women’s tears could impregnate the earth.” By the 
doctrine of equivocal generation new animals were supposed pro- 
ducible by new combinations of matter. Shakespeare here alludes 
to the fabulous accounts which make the crocodile the most deceit+ — 
ful of animals. «It is written that he will weep over a man’s head 


oh 98) ba 


520 OTHELLO, ? ACT IV 


Des. [Going.] I will not stay to offend you. 
Lod. 'Truly, an obedient lady. — 
I do beseech your lordship, call her back. 
Oth. Mistress ! 
Des. My lord? | | : 
Oth. What. would you with her, sir? 
Lod. Who, I, my Jord? 
Oth. Ay; you did wish that I would make her 
turn: . | 
Sir, she can turn, and turn, and yet go on, 
And turn again; and she can weep, sir, weep ; 
And she’s obedient, as you say, — obedient, — 
Very obedient. — Proceed you in your tears. — 
Concerning this, sir, —O, well-painted passion !— 
I am commanded home.— Get you away ; 
Vl send for you anon.—Sir, I obey the mandate, 
And will return to Venice. — Hence! avaunt! 
[Exit Despemona. 
Cassio shall have my place. And,— Sir, to-night, 
I do entreat that we may sup together : : 
You are welcome, sir, to Cyprus. — Goats, and mon- 
keys !'9 — [ Bxit. 
Lod. 1s this the noble Moor whom our full senate 
Call all-in-all sufficient ? this the noble nature2° | 


when he hath devoured the body, and will then eat up the head 
too.” Wherefore in Latin there is a proverb, « Crocodili lach- 
ryme, crocodiles teares, to signifie such teares as are feigned, and 
spent only with intent to deceive or do harm.” — Bullokar’s Ex- 
positor, 1616. 

"9 In this exclamation Shakespeare has shown great art. Tago 
in Actiii. sc. 3, being urged to give some evident proof of the guilt 
of Cassio and Desdemona, tells the Moor it were impossible to have 
ocular demonstration of it, though they should be as prime as 
goats, as hot as monkeys. These words, we may suppose, still 
ring in the ears of Othello, who, being now fully convinced of his 
wife’s infidelity, rashes out with this emphatic exclamation. 

7° Thus both the quartos : the folio omits noble before nature 
Mr. Dyce is sure it ought to be omitted, and we.are not sure but 
he is right. H 


90.58) THE MOOR OF VENICE. 52] 


Whom passion could not shake ?: whose solid virtue 
The shot of accident, nor dart of chance, 
Could neither graze, nor pierce? 
Lago. He is much chang’d. 
Lod. Are his wits safe? is he not light of brain? 
Tago. He’s that he is: I may not breathe my cen- 
sure. 
What he might be, —if, what he might, he is not, — 
I would to Heaven, he were. 
Lod. What! strike his wife ? 
Tago. ’Faith, that was not so well; yet would I 
knew 
_ That stroke would prove the worst. 
Lod. Is it his use? 
Or did the letters work upon his blood, 
And new-create this fault ? 
— Lago. Alas, alas! 
It is not honesty in me, to speak 
What I have seen and known. You shall observe 
. him 3. 
And his own courses will denote him so, 
That I may save my speech. Do but go after, 
And mark how he continues. 
Lod. 1 am sorry, that I am deceiv’d in him. 
[ Exeunt. 


SCENE II. A Room in the Castle. 


Enter OTHELLO and EMILIA. 


Oth. You have seen nothing, then? 
Emil. Nor ever heard; nor ever did suspect. 
Oth. Yes, you have seen Cassio and her together, 
Emil. But then I saw no harm; and then I heard 
Each syllable that breath made up between them. 
, Oth. What! did they never whisper ? 
44* 


522 OTHELLO, ; ACT IV. 


Emil. Never, iny lord. 

Oth. Nor send you out o’the way ? 

Emil. Never. 

Oth. To fetch her fan, her gloves, her mask, not 

nothing ? 

Emil. Never, my lord. 

Oth. 'That’s strange. 

Emil. I durst, my lord, to wager she is honest, 

Lay down my soul at stake: if you think other, 
Remove your thought ; it doth abuse your bosom. 
If any wretch hath put this in your head, 
Let Heaven requite it with the serpent’s curse ! 
For, if she be not honest, chaste, and true, 
There’s no man happy ; the purest of their wives 
Is foul as slander. 

Oth. Bid her come hither: — go. — 

[Evit Emivia. 
She says enough ; — yet she’s a simple bawd, 
That cannot say as much. ‘This is a subtle whore, 
A closet-lock-and-key of villainous secrets: 
And yet she’ll kneel, and pray ; I have seen her do’t. 


Re-enter Emiuia, with DesDEMONA. 
Des. My lord, what is your will ? 


Oth. Pray, chuck, come hither. 
Des. What is your pleasure ? 
Oth. Let me see your eyes: 
Look in my face. 
Des. What horrible fancy’s this? 
Oth. [To Emmta.] Some of your function, mis- 
tress: 


Leave procreants alone, and shut the door ; 

Cough, or cry, hem! if any body come: 

Your mystery, your mystery; — nay, despatch. 
[Exit EMILIA 


SC. II. THE MOOR OF VENICE. 523 


Des. Upon my knees, what doth your speech im 
port ? 
{ understand a fury in your words, 
But not the words.’ 
Oth. Why, what art thou? 


Des. Your wife, my lord; your true 
And loyal wife. 
Oth. Come, swear it, damn thyself ; 


Lest, being like one of heaven, the devils themselves 
Should fear to seize thee: therefore be double 
damn’d ; 
Swear thou art honest. 
Des. Heaven doth truly know it. 
Oth. Heaven truly knows that thou art false as 
hell. 
Des. To whom, my lord? with whom? How am 
I false ? 
Oth. O Desdemona !—away, away, away ! 
Des. Alas, the heavy day !— Why do you weep? 
Am I th’ occasion of these tears, my lord?” 
If, haply, you my father do suspect 
An instrument of this your calling back, 
Lay not your blame on me: if you have lost him, 
Why, I have lost him too. 
Oth. Had it pleas’d°- Heaven 
To try me with affliction; had He rain’d ° 
All kinds of sores and shames on my bare head ; 
Steep’d me in poverty to the very lips; 
Given to captivity me and my utmost hopes ; 
I should have found in some part of my soul 
A drop of patience: but, alas! to make me 
A fixed figure, for the time of scorn 


! So both quartos ; the hemistich is not in the folio. H. 

2 The folio has motive instead of occusion, the reading of both 
quartos. And in the last line of this speech, Why is wanting in 
the folio. H. 


524 OTHELLO, . ACT IV 


To point his slow unmoving finger at ;* — 
Yet could I bear that too; well, very well :— 
But there, -where I have garner’d up my heart; 
Where either I must live, or bear no life; 
The fountain from the which my current runs, 
Or else dries up ; to be discarded thence, 
Or keep it as a cistern, for foul toads 
To knot and gender in! — turn thy complexion there, 
Patience, thou young and rose-lipp’d cherubin ; 
Ay, there, look grim as hell! 
Des. I hope my noble lord esteems me honest. 
Oth. O! ay ; as summer flies are in the shambles, 
That quicken even with blowing. O, thou weed! 
Who art so lovely fair, and smell’st so sweet, 
That the sense aches at thee, would thou hadst 
ne’er been born ! 


3 So read all the old copies, save that the folio has “slow and 
moving.’ Much has been written upon the passage, and divers 
changes proposed, such as “hand of scorn,” and slowly moving, 
most of them originating in a notion that the Poet had some sort 
of time-piece in his mind. Probably, not to say certainly, no 
such reference was intended. So that all the progeny of that no- 
tion may be set aside. “The time of scorn” means, no doubt, 
as Knight says, “the age of scorn,” that is, the whole period dur- 
ing which scorn may be said to live. The “fixed figure” is sim- 
ply the speaker himself, and not any figure on a dial-plate. As 
to “slow unmoving,” the sense of it can be better felt than ex- 
pressed: we can see the sneer darting from the inexorable finger, 
ever slowly moving with the object, never moving from it; but 
we cannot speak it in any words but Shakespeare’s, as they stand 
in the text. ‘The best of all the proposed changes that we have 
seen, in fact the only one worth entertaining, is Mr. Hunter’s, who 
would transpose for and of, thus: “A fixed figure of the time for 
Scorn to point,” &c. We will add Mr. R. G. White’s comment 
on the last line of the passage: “Some have chosen the reading 
of the folio, on the ground that if the finger of scorn be ‘slow,’ it 
must move, and therefore, ‘unmoving’ is an incongruous epithet! 
But surely the finger of scorn is ‘ unmoving,’. because it does not 
move from its object, but points at him fixedly and relentlessly. 
To say that a thing is ‘slow,’ and then to add that it moves, is 
certainly worthy only of an idiot.” H 


sc. II. THE MOOR OF VENICE. 525 


Des. Alas! what ignorant sin have I committed? 
Oth. Was this fair paper, this most goodly book, 
Made to write whore upon?) What committed ? 
Committed !—O, thou public commoner ! * 
I should make very forges of my cheeks, 
That would to cinders burn up modesty, 
Did I but speak thy deeds. — What committed 1 
Heaven stops the nose at it, and the moon winks 3 
The bawdy wind, that kisses all it meets,* 
Is hush’d within the hollow mine of earth, 
And will not hear it: What committed ?1— 
Impudent strumpet !° 


Des. By Heaven, you do me wrong. 
Oth. Are not you a strumpet ? 
Des. No, as I am a Christian : 


If to preserve this vessel for my lord,’ 
From any other foul unlawful touch, 
Be not to be a strumpet, I am none. 
Oth. What! not a whore? 
Des. : No, as I shall be sav’d. 
Oth. s’t possible ? 
Des. O, Heaven forgive us! 
Oth. I cry you mercy, then! 
I took you for that cunning whore of Venice, 
That married with Othello. — You, mistress, 


Re-enter EMIuta. 
That have the office opposite to Saint Peter,’ 


4 This and the next three lines are in the folio and the quarto 
of 1630, but not in that of 1622. H. 

§ So in The Merchant of Venice: “ Hugg’d and embraced by 
the strumpet wind.” 

6 The words, “Impudent strumpet,’”’ are in both quartos, but 
not in the folio. H. 

7 This expression is from Sacred Writ : “To possess his vessel 
jn sanctification.” 

8 That is, the office opposed to Saint Peter ; alluding, evidently, © 


526 OTHELLO, : ACT Iv. 


And keep the gate of hell; you, you, ay, you! 
We have done our course’; there’s money for your 
pains: 
J pray you, turn the key, and keep our counsel. 
[ Exit. 
Emil. Alas! what does this gentleman conceive ? 
How do you, madam? how do you, my good lady? 
Des. ’Faith, half asleep. : 
Emil. Good madam, what’s the matter with my 
lord? 
Des. With whom 2 
Emil. Why, with my lord, madam. 
Des. Who is thy lord ?° 
Emil. He that is yours, sweet lady. 
Des. T have none. ,Do not talk to me, Emilia; 
I cannot weep; nor answer I have none, 
But what should go by water."°  Pr’ythee, to-night 
Lay on my bed my wedding sheets, — remember ; — 
And call thy husband hither. 
Emil. Here’s a change, indeed! [Evit. 
Des. "Tis meet I should be us’d so, very meet. 
How have I been behav’d, that he might stick 
The small’st opinion on my least misuse ?! 


_ Re-enter Emiuta, with Lago. 


Lago. What is your pleasure, madam? How is it 
with you? 


to “the power of the keys,” which was given to the Apostles gen- 
erally, and especially to Saint Peter as representing them. So 
that the opposition is between Emilia as keeper of the gate of hell, 
and Saint Peter .as keeper of the gate of heaven. The sense, 
therefore, requires that the special emphasis, if there be any, should 
be laid on opposite. H. 

® This and the next speech are not in the first quarto. 

10 That is, be expressed by tears. 

1! Thus the folio and the quarto of 1630; the other quarto, “on 

* my greatest abuse.” H. 


SC. II. THE MOOR OF VENICE. 527 


Des. I cannot tell. Those that do teach young 
babes, 
Do it with gentle means and easy tasks : 
He might have chid me so; for, in good faith, 
I am a child to chiding. 
Tago. What’s the matter, lady? 
Emil. Alas! Jago, my lord hath so bewhor’d her, 
Thrown such despite and heavy terms upon her, 
As true hearts cannot bear. 
Des. Am I that name, Iago? 
Tago. What name, fair lady ? 
Des. Such as, she says, my lord did say I was. 
Emil. He call’d her whore: a beggar, in his drink, 
Could not have laid such terms upon his callat.’” 
Tago. Why did he sor? 
Des. Ido not know; I am sure I am none such. 
Iago. Do not weep, do not weep. Alas, the day! 
Emil. Has she forsook so many noble matches, 
Her father, and her country, and her friends, 
To be call’d whore? would it not make one weep? 
Des. It is my wretched fortune. 


Lago. Beshrew him for’t! 
How comes this trick upon him ? 
Des. Nay, Heaven doth know. 


Emil. I will be hang’d, if some eternal villain, 
Some busy and insinuating rogue, 
Some cogging cozening slave, to get some office, 
Have not devis’d this slander: [ll be hang’d else. 
Tago. Fie! there is no such man: it is impossible. 
Des. If any such there be, Heaven pardon him! 
Emil. A halter pardon him! and hell gnaw his 
bones! | 


12 A callat is a trull, a drab. The word is of great antiquity 
in the English language. See The Winter’s Tale, Act ii. se. 3, 
note 9. . 


Myer eh; 
Sere 


528 - OTHELLO, ACT Ive 


Why-should he call her whore? who keeps her 


company ? 


What place? what time? what form? what likeli- 


hood ? 

The Moor’s abus’d by some most villainous knave,’® 

Some base notorious knave, some scurvy fellow. — 

O, Heaven, that such companions Thou’dst unfold, 

And put in every honest hand a whip, 

To lash the rascal naked through the world, 

Even from the east to the west | 
Tago. Speak within door.’* 
Emil. O, fie upon them! some such squire he was, 

That turn’d your wit the seamy side without, 


And made you to suspect me with the Moor. } 


Iago. You.are a fool; go to. 

Des. O, good Iago! 118 
What shall I do to win my lord again ? 
Good friend, go to him; for, by this light of heaven, 
I know not how I lost him. Here I kneel : — 
If e’er my will did trespass ’gainst his love, 
Kuither in discourse of thought, or actual deed ;’ 


a 


13 The quarto of 1622 has, “some outrageous knave.’”’— No- 
torious knave is here used for some knave worthy to he noted, or 
branded with infamy.— It has been already observed that com- 
panion was aterm of contempt. See Julius Cesar, Act iv. se. 3, 
note 6. 

14 Do not clamour so as to be heard beyond the house. 

18 The folio reads, «« Alus, lago!””— All of this speech, after 
“how I Jost him,” is wanting in the quarto of 1622. ‘The other 
quarto and the folte have it coniplete, H. 

16 « Discourse of thought”? probably means much the same as 
«discourse of reason ;”’ that i is, discursive range of thought. See 
Hamlet, Act i. sc. 2, note 19. The phrase, “ discoursing thoughts,” 
is met with in Sir John Davies’ Epigrams. Pope changed « dis- 
course of thought” to “discourse, or thought,” which certainly 
is more in accordance with the solemn and impressive particularity 
of the speaker’s asseveration of innocence. The change has also 
been approved as referring to the three forms of sin, “ by thought, 
word, and deed,” specified in the old catechisms and the eucha- 


. ima st 
' 


SC. Il. ' THE MOOR OF VENICE. 529, 


Or that mine eyes, mine ears, or any sense, 
Delighted them in any other form ; 
Or that I do not yet, and ever did, 
And ever will, —though he do shake me off 
To beggarly divorcement, —love him dearly, 
onan, forswear me! Unkindness may do much ; 
And his unkindness may defeat my life, 
But never taint my love. I cannot say whore ; 
It does abhor me, now I speak the word ; 
To do the act that might the addition earn, 
Not the world’s mass of vanity could make me. 
Tago. 1 pray you, be content ; ’tis but his humour: 
The business of the state does him offence, 
And he does chide with you."’ 
Des. : If ’twere no other, — 
Tago. It is but so, I warrant. [ Trumpets. 
Hark, how these instruments summon to supper ! 
The messengers of Venice stay the meat.'* 
Go in, and weep not; all things shall be well. — 
[Ezeunt Despemona and EMILIA. 


Enter RopERIGoO. 


How now, Roderigo ! 
Rod. I do not find that thou deal’st justly with 
me. . 
Tago. What in the contrary ? 
Rod. Every day thou daff’st me with some de- 


ristical confession of the Church. Nevertheless, we adhere to the 
text as it stands in all the old copies. H. 

17 This was the phraseology of the time. “To complaine, to 
make a quarrel, to chide with one for a thing. Expostulare et 
queri.’— Barret. So in the Poet’s 111th Sonnet: “O, for my 
sake do you with fortune chide.’ —The words, “And he does 
chide with you,” are in both quartos, but not in the folio. — H. 

i8 Thus the folio ; ; the quarto of 1622, “ And the great messen- 
gers of Venice stay ;” that of 1630, « The meat great inessengers 
of Venice stay.” H. 


VOL. X. 45 34 


es 


e 


530 OTHELLO, ACT IV 


vice, Iago; and rather, as it seems to me now 

keep’st from me all conveniéncy, than suppliest me 

with the least advantage of hope. I will, indeed, 

no longer endure it; nor am I yet persuaded to put 

up in peace what already I have foolishly suffer’d. 
fago. Will you hear me, Roderigo ? 

Rod. ’Faith, I have heard too much; for your 
words and performances are no kin together.’® 

fago. You charge me most unjustly. 

Rod. With nought but truth. I have wasted my- 
self out of my means: the jewels you have had 
from me, to deliver to Desdemona, would half have 
corrupted a votarist: You have told me, she has 
receiv'd them, and return’d me expectations and 
comforts of sudden respect and acquaintance; but 
I find none. 

ago. Well; go to; very well. 

Rod. Very well! go to! I cannot go to, man; 
nor ’tis not very well: by this hand, I say it is very 
scurvy ;°° and begin to find myself fobb’d in it. 

Tago. Very well. 

Rod. I tell you ’tis not very well. I will make 
myself known to Desdemona: if she will return” 
me my jewels, I will give over my suit, and repent 
my unlawful solicitation; if not, assure yourself, I 
will seek. satisfaction of you. 

Tago. You have said now. 

Rod. Ay, and I have said nothing but what I pro- . 
test intendment of doing. 


19 Here a remarkable fact is met with, showing that’ the folio 
of 1623 must have been corrected while going through the press. 
Mr. Collier tells us that in a copy of that edition belonging to the 
Duke of Devonshire this speech stands thus: “ And hell gnaw his 
bones. Performances are no kin together.” H. 

0 Instead of « by this hand, I say it is very scurvy,” the folia 
has, merely, “ nay, I think it is scurvy.” tey at 


key, 6 tet a ala ir 


. SC. ll. THE MOOR OF VENICE. 531 


Tago. Why, now I see there’s mettle in thee ; 
and even from this instant do build on thee a bet- 
ter opinion than ever before. Give me thy hand, 
Roderigo: thou hast taken against me a most just 
exception; but yet, I protest, I have dealt most di- 
rectly in thy affair. 

Rod. It hath not appear’d. 

Tago. 1 grant, indeed, it hath not appear’d, and 
your suspicion is not without wit and judgment.” 
But, Roderigo, if thou hast that in thee indeed, 
which I have greater reason to believe now than 
ever, —I mean, purpose, courage, and valour, — 
this night show it: if thou the next night following 
enjoy not Desdemona, take me from this world with 
treachery, and devise engines for my life. 

Rod. Well, what is it? is it within reason and 
compass ? : 

Tago. Sir, there is especial commission come from 
Venice, to depute Cassio in Othello’s place. 

Rod. Is that true? why, then Othello and Des- 
demona return again to Venice. 

Iago. O, no! he goes into Mauritania, and takes 
away with him the fair Desdemona, unless his abode 
be linger’d here by some accident ;** wherein none 
can be so determinate, as the removing of Cassio. 


21 Shakespeare knew well that most men like to be flattered or 
account of those endowments in which they are most deficient. 
Hence Iago’s compliment to this snipe on his sagacity and shrewd- 
ness. — MALONE. 

22 This passage proves, so far as any thing said by Iago may 
be believed, that Othello was not meant to be a Negro, as has been 
represented, both on the stage and off, but a veritable Moor. His 
kindred, the Mauritanians, — from whose “men of royal siege he 
fetched his life and being,” and among whom he was about to re- 
tire, —though apt enough to be confounded with the Negroes, 
were as different from them, externally, as brown is from black 3 
internally, in mind and character, the difference was far greater. 

iL: ¢ 


‘e* cae 


532 . OTHELLO, ACT Ive 


Rod. How do you mean removing of him? 

Tago. Why, by making him uncapable of Othel- 
Jo’s place; knocking out his brains. 

Rod. And that you would have me do? 

Iago. Ay; if you dare do yourself a profit, and a 
right. He sups to-night with a harlotry, and thither 
will I go to him: he knows not yet of his honour- 
able fortune. If you will watch his going thence, 
(which I will fashion to fall out between twelve and 
one,) you may take him at your pleasure: I will be 
near to second your attempt, and be shall fall be- 
tween us. Come, stand not amaz’d at it, but go 
along with me; I will show you such a necessity in 
his death, that you shall think yourself bound to put 
iton him. It is now high supper-time, and the night 
grows to waste: about it. 

Rod. 1 will hear further reason for this. 

Tago. And you shall be satisfied. [ Exeunt. 


SCENE III. Another Room in the Castle. 


Enter OTHELLO, Lopovico, DespEmona, EMILIA, 
and Attendants. 


Lod. I do beseech you, sir, trouble yourself no 
further. 

Oth. O, pardon me! ’twill do me good to walk. 

Lod. Madam, good night; I humbly thank your 
ladyship. 

Des. Your honour is most welcome. 

Oth. Will you walk, sir ?—O !— Desdemona, — 

Des. My lord? 

Oth. Get you to bed on th’ instant; I will be re- 


23 Shakespeare has the expression, “a peevish self-will’d har- 
lotry,” ia two other plays. 


SC. III. THE MOOR OF VENICE. 533 


turn’d forthwith. Dismiss your attendant. there; 
look, it be done. 
Des. 1 will, my lord. 
[Exeunt Oru. Lop. and Attendants. 
Emil. How goes it now? he looks gentler than 
he did.’ 
Des. He says he will return incontinent. 
He hath commanded me to go to bed, 
And bade me to dismiss you. 
Emil. Dismiss me ? 
Des. It was his bidding ; therefore, good Emilia, 
Give me my nightly wearing, and adieu: 
We must not now displease him. 
Emil. 1 would you had never seen him! 
Des. So would not I: my love doth so approve 
him, 
That even his stubbornness, his checks, and 
frowns — 


Pr’ythee, unpin me — have grace and favour in them. 


Emil. 1 have laid those sheets you bade me on 
the bed. 
Des. All’s one. —Good Pathe how foolish are 
our minds ! — 
If I do die before thee, pr’ythee, shroud me 
In one of those same sheets. 
Emil. Come, come, you talk. 
Des. My mother had a maid call’d Barbara: 
She was in love; and he she lov’d prov’d mad, 
And did forsake her: she had a song of —willow, 
An old thing ‘twas, but it express’d her fortune, 
And she died singing it. That song, to-night, 


1 One of those side intimations of the fluctuations of passion, 
which we seldom meet with but in Shakespeare. He has here put 
into half a line what some authors would have spun out into ten 
set speeches. — Hazvitt. H. 


45 * 


534 OTHELLO, ACT IV 


Will not go from my mind; I have much to-do,” 
But to go hang my head all at one side, 
And sing it like poor Barbara. Pr’ythee, despatch. 

Emil. Shall I go fetch your night-gown? 

Des. No, unpin me here. — 
This Lodovico is a proper man. 

Emil. A very handsome man. 

Des. He speaks well. | 

Emil. I know a lady in Venice, would have 
walk’d barefoot to Palestine for a touch of his 
nether lip. 


Des. [Sings.] The poor soul sat sighing by a sycamore 
tree, 

Sing all a green willow ; 

Her hand on her bosom, her head on her knee, 
Sing willow, willow, willow: 

The fresh streams ran by her, and murmur’d her moans, 
Sing willow, willow, willow: 

Her salt tears fell from her, and soften’d the stones;— 


Lay by these. — 
Sing willow, willow, willow: — 
Pr’ythee, hie thee ; he’ll come anon. — 
Sing all a green willow must be my garland. 
Let nobody blame him, his scorn I approve, — 


Nay, that’s not next. — Hark ! who is it that knocks? 
Emil. It’s the wind. 


Des. [Sings.] I call’d my love, false love; but what said 
he then ? 


2 That is, I have much ado to do any thing, but to go, &c. 
To-do was, and still is, often used thus in the sense of ado. — What 
follows, beginning with, “I have much to-do,” including the song, 

and ending with, “Nay, that’s not next,” is wanting in the quarto 
of 1622. The other quarto and the folio have the text complete. 
H. 


Or 


sc. Lil. THE MOOR OF VENICE. 53 


Sing willow, willow, willow: 
If I court mo women, you'll couch with mo men.? — 


So, get thee gone; good night. Mine eyes do itch; 
Doth that bode weeping ? 
Emil. *Tis neither here nor there. 
Des. I have heard it said so.—O, these men, 
these men ! — 
Dost thou in conscience think, —tell me, Emilia, — 
That there be women do abuse their husbands 
In such gross kind ?* 


3 This part of the song also is wanting in the first quarto. — 
These lines sung by Desdemona are from an old ballad, entitled 
« A Lover’s Complaint, being forsaken of his Love.” The ballad 
may be found entire in Bishop Percy’s Reliques of Ancient Po- 
etry. It is there the lament of a man: Shakespeare adapted it to 


-_ the sex of “poor Barbara.” We subjoin the four stanzas from 


which he borrowed : 


«« A poore soule sat sighing under a sicamore tree ; 
O willow, willow, willow ! 

With his Nett on soe bosom, his head on his knee: 
O willow, willow, willow! 


Sing, Q the greene willow shall be my garland. 


“ The cold streams ran by him, his eyes wept apace ; 
O willow, willow, willow! 

The salt tears fell from him, which drowned his face : 
O willow, willow, willow! 


Sing, O the greene willow shall be my garland. 


« The mute birds sat by him, made tame by his mones 5 
O willow, willow, willow! 

’ The salt tears fell from him, which soften’d the stones: 
O willow, willow, willow! 


Sing, O the greene ‘willow shall be my garland. 


“ Let nobody blame me, her scornes I do prove ; 
O willow, willow, willow! 
She was borne to be faire; I to die for her love: 
O willow, willow, willow! 
Sing, O the greene willow shall be my garland.” H. 


4 This speech and the next are also wanting in the quarto of 
1622. — The pathos of this scene, O, who can describe it! H. 


oR eee eN aT Aaa, 


536 OTHELLO, ACT IV. 


Emil. There be some such, no question. 
Des. Would’st thou do such a deed for all the 
world? . 

Emil. Why, would not you? 

Des. No, by this heavenly light! 

Emil. Nor IT neither by this heavenly light : 
I might do’t as well i’the dark. 

Des. Would’st thou do such a deed for all the 

world ? 

Emil. 'The world is a huge thing: ’tis a great price 
For a small vice. 

Des. In troth, I think thou would’st not. 

Emil. Yn troth, I think I should, and undo’t, when 
I had done. Marry, I would not do such a thing 
for a joint-ring,’ nor for measures of lawn, nor for 
gowns, petticoats, nor caps, nor any petty exhibition; 
but, for the whole world, —why, who would not 
make her husband a cuckold, to make him a mon- 
arch? I should venture purgatory for’t. 

Des. Beshrew me, if I would do such a wrong 
for the whole world. i 

Emil. Why, the wrong is but a wrong i’the 
world; and, baving the world for your labour, ’tis 
a wrong in your own world, and you might quickly 
make it right. 


° A joint-ring was anciently a token of troth-plight between 
lovers, like the piece of broken gold in the Bride of Lammermoor 
Dryden has a minute description of it in his Don Sebastian: 


“ A curious artist wrought them 
With joints so close as not to be perceiv’d ; 
Yet are they both each other’s counterpart : 
Her part had Juan inserib’d, and his had Zayda, 
(You know these names are theirs,) and in the midst 
A heart divided in two halves was plae’d. 
Now, if the rivets of those rings enclos’d 
Fit not each other, I have forg’d this lie ; 
But if they join, you must for ever part.” H. 


‘SC. ITI. THE MOOR OF VENICE. 537 


Des. I do not think there is any such woman. 
Emil. Yes, a dozen; and as many to the vantage, 
as would store the world they play’d for.° 
But I do think it is their husbands’ faults, 
If wives do fall. Say, that they slack their duties, 
And pour our treasures into foreign laps ; 
Or else break out in peevish jealousies, 
Throwing restraint upon us; or, say, they strike us, 
Or scant our former having, in despite ; 
Why, we have galls; and, though we have some 
grace, f 
Yet have we some revenge. _ Let husbands know, 
Their wives have sense like them: they see, and 
smell, 
And have their palates, both for sweet and sour, 
As husbands have. What is it that they do, 
When they change us for others? Is it sport ?- 
I think it is: and doth affection breed it? 
I think it doth: is’t frailty that thus errs ? 
It is so too. And have not we affections, 
Desires for sport, and frailty, as men have ? 
Then, let them use us well; else, let them know, 
‘The ills we do, their ills instruct us so. 
Des. Good night, good night: Heaven me such 
uses send, 
Not to pick bad from bad, but by bad mend! 
. [ Exeunt. 


6 To the vantage is the same in sense as to hoot, — What fole 
.ows of this speech is not in the first quarto. H. 


538 OTHELLO, ACT V. 


ACT V. 


SCENE I. A Street. 


Enter Iaco and Ropverieo. 


Tago. Here, stand behind this bulk ; straight will » 
he come: 
Wear thy good rapier bare, and put it home: 
Quick, quick; fear nothing; I'll be at thy elbow. 
It makes us, or it mars us; think on that, 
And fix most firm thy resolution. 
Rod. Be near at hand; I may miscarry in’t. 
Jago. Here, at thy hand: be bold, and take thy 
stand. [Retires to a little distance. 
Rod. I have no great devotion to the deed; 
And yet he has given me satisfying reasons. — 
*Tis but a man gone : —forth, my sword; he dies. 
[Goes to his stand. 
Jago. 1 have rubb’d this young quat almost to 
the sense,’ 
And he grows angry. Now, whether he kill Cassio, 
Or Cassio him, or each do kill the other, 
Every way makes my gain: Live Roderigo, 
He calls me to a restitution large 
Of gold and jewels, that I bobb’d from him,? 
As gifts to Desdemona ; 
It must not be: if Cassio do remain, 


1 A quat,in the midland counties, is still used for a pimple, 
which by rubbing is made to smart, or rubbed to sense. Roderigo 
is called a quat by the same mode of speech as a low fellow is 
now termed in Jow language a scab. To rub to the sense is to rub 
to the quick.—In the third line after, the quartos have game for 
wain. 

* That is, fool’d him out of. To bod is to cheat or deceive with 
a false mle. 


nk ee hatte, Dekh 8 a aad 
. 


SOs Ts THE MOOR OF VENICE. : 539 


He hath a daily beauty in his life, 

That makes me ugly; and, besides, the Moor 
May unfold me to him: there stand I in much peril. 
No, he must die : —be’t so, I hear him coming.® 


Enter Cassio. 


Rod. 1 know his gait; ’tis he. —Villain, thou 
diest. 
[Rushes out, and makes a pass at Cassio. 
Cas. That thrust had been mine enemy indeed, 
But that my coat is better than thou know’st : 
I will make proof of thine. 
[ Draws, and wounds RoDERIGO. 
Rod. O, I am slain! 
[Iaco rushes forth, cuts Cassio behind in the 
Leg, and exit. 
Cas. I am maim’d for ever.— Help, ho! murder ! 
murder ! [ Falls. 


Enter OTHELLO, at a distance. 


Oth. The voice of Cassio. — Iago keeps his word. 

Rod. O, villain that I am ! 

Oth. It’s even so. 

Cas. O, help! ho! light! a surgeon! 

Oth. ’Vis he. —O, brave Iago! honest, and just, 
That hast such noble sense of thy friend’s wrong; 
Thou teachest me. — Minion, your dear lies dead, 
And your unblest fate hies :‘—strumpet, I come! 
Forth of my heart those ‘charms, thine eyes, are 


blotted ; 
Thy bed, lust-stain’d, shall with lust’s blood be 
spotted. | [Exit OTHELLO. 


3 Thus the quartos; the folio, “ but so, I heard him coming.” 
H. 
4 Thus the folio AB the quarto of 1630 ; the other quarto, “ eee 
your fate hies apace.” 


Tes 


540 OTHELLO, | ACT V. 


Enter Lopovico and GRaATIANO, at a distance. 


Cas. What, ho! no watch? no passage ?° mur 
der! murder! 

Gra. ’Tis some mischance ; the cry is very dire- 
ful. 

Cas. O, help! 

Lod. Hark! 

Rod. O, wretched villain ! 

Lod. Two or three groan.—It is a heavy night! 

These may be counterfeits; let’s think’t unsafe 


To come into the cry, without more help. 
Rod. Nobody come? then shall I bleed to death. 


‘Enter Laco, with a Light. 
Lod. Hark! 


Gra. Here’s one comes in his shirt, with light and 
weapons. 

Iago. Who’s there ? whose noise is this, that cries 
on murder? 


Lod. We do not know. 


Tago. Did not you hear a cry? 
Cas. Here, here! for Heaven’s sake, help me. 
Lago. What’s the matter ? 


Gra. This is Othello’s ancient, as I take it. 

Lod. 'The same, indeed; a very valiant fellow. 

Tago. What are you here, that cry so grievously ? 

Cas. Iago? O! I am spoil’d, undone by villains : 
Give me some help. 


Lago. O me, lieutenant! what villains have done 
this ? 


5 That is, no passengers 7 nobody going by? A passenger ans 
ciently signified a passage-boat or vessel, and could not therefore 
be used in its modern sense without an equivoque. — In the next 
line, the folio has voice instead of cry. 


Si, ls THE MQOR OF VENICE. 541 


Cas. I think that one of them is hereabout, 
And cannot make away. 
Lago. O, treacherous villains ! — 
[To Lovo. and Grati.] What are you there? come 
in, and give some help. 
Rod. O, help me! here. 
Cas. 'That’s one of them. 
Tago. O, murderous slave! O villain! 
[Stabs RopERIGo. 
Rod. O, damn’d Iago! O, inhuman dog! 
Tago. Kill men i’the dark !— Where be these 
bloody thieves ? — 
How silent is this town!—Ho! muyder! murder! 
What may you be? are you of good, or evil? 
Lod. As you shall prove us, praise us. 
Tago. Signior Lodovico ? 
Lod. He, sir. 
Tago. I cry you mercy: Here’s Cassio hurt by 
villains. 
Gra. Cassio? 
Tago. How is it, brother ? 
Cas. My leg is cut in two. 
Tago. Marry, Heaven forbid ! — 
Light, gentlemen: I'll bind it with my shirt. 


Enter Branca. 


Bian. What is the matter, ho? who is’t that 
cried ? 
Tago. Who is’t that cried! 
Bian. O, my dear Cassio! my sweet Cassio! 
O Cassio, Cassio, Cassio! 
Tago. O, notable strumpet !— Cassio, may you 
suspect 
Who they should be, that have thus mangled you? 
Cas. No. 
VOL. X. 46 


542 OTHELLO, ACT V. 


Gra. I am sorry to find you thus: I have been 
to seek you. 
Tago. Lend me a garter: so. —O, for a chair, 
To bear him easily hence !° 
Bian. Alas! he faints. —O Cassio | i Cassio! : 
Cassio ! 
Iago. Gentlemén all, I do suspect this trash 
To be a party in this injury. — 
Patience awhile, good Cassio. —Come, come 3 
Lend me a light.— Know we this face, or no? 
Alas! my friend, and my dear countryman, 
Roderigo? no:—yes, sure. O Heaven! Roderigo. 
Gra. What! of Venice? . 
Tago. Even he, sir: did you know him? 
Gra. 3 Know him? ay. 
Tago. Signior Gratiano? I cry you gentle pardon : 
These bloody accidents must excuse my manners, 
That so neglected you. 
Gra. I am glad to see you. 
Iago. How do you, Cassio? — O, a chair, a chair! 
Gra. Roderigo ? 
Tago. He, he, ’tis he. —O, that’s well said!’ —the 
chair. — [A Chair brought in. 
Some good man bear him carefully from hence ; 
I'll fetch the general’s surgeon. — For you, mistress, 


: ° [To Bianca. 
Save you your, labour.— He that lies slain here, 
Cassio, 
Was my dear friend. What malice was between 
you ? . 
Cas. None in the world; nor do I know the 
man. 


8 This speech is not in the first quarto, 
7 This phrase was often used where we should say, “well done.” 
See 1 Henry IV., Act v. sc. 4, note 3. H. 


SC. I. THE MOOR OF VENICE. 543 


Tago. [To Bian.] What! look you pale?—QO, 
bear him out o’the air. — 
[Cassio and Rop. are borne off. 
Stay you, good gentlemen.*— Look you pale, mis- 
tress 1— 
Do you perceive the ghastness of her eye ?— 
Nay, if you stare,® we shall hear more anon. — 
Behold her well; I pray you, look upon her: 
Do you see, gentlemen? nay, guiltiness will speak, 
Though tongues were out of use. 


Enter Em1uta. 


Emil. Alas! what is the matter? what’s the mat- 
ter, husband 2 
Tago. Cassio hath here been set on in the dark 
By Roderigo, and fellows that are ’scap’d : 
He’s almost slain, and Roderigo dead. 
Emil. Alas, good gentleman! alas, good Cassio! 
Tago. This is the fruit of whoring.— Pr’ythee, 
Emilia, 
Go know of Cassio where he supp’d to-night. — 
What! do you shake at that? 
Bian. He supp’d at my house; but I therefore 
shake not. 
Tago. O! did he so? I charge you, go with me. 
Emil. O, fie upon thee, strumpet ! 
Bian. I am no strumpet; but of life as honest, 
As you that thus abuse me. 
Emil. As I? fie upon thee ! 


8 Thus the folio; the quartos, —“ Stay you, good gentlewoman.” 
It seems probable that Iago addresses Lodovico and Gratiano, 
who are going away, to assist Cassio, and to see him properly taken 
care of. 

9 Thus the folio: the quartos have “an you stir ;”’ and, in the 
preceding line, gestures instead of ghastness, H. 


a Poe vane eo eT! eg 
ee 


544 : OTHELLO, ACT V, 


Tago. Kind gentlemen, let’s go see poor Cassio 
dress’d. — 
Come, mistress, you must tell ’s another tale. — 
Emilia, run you to the citadel, 
And tell my lord and lady what hath happ’d.— 
Will you go on, I pray ?!— [Aside.| This is the 
night, 
That either makes me, or fordoes me quite.’ 
| Exeunt. 


SCENE II. A Bed-chamber. 


Despemona in Bed asleep. A Light burning. 


Enter OTHELLO. 


Oth. It is the cause, it is the cause, my soul, — 
Let me not name it to you, you chaste stars!’ — 
It is the cause. — Yet Il] not shed her blood ; 
Nor sear that whiter skin of hers than snow, 

And smooth as monumental alabaster. 


[ Takes off his sword. 


Yet she must die, else she'll betray more men. 
Put out the light, and then — Put out the light !” 


10 To fordo is to undo, to ruin, to destroy. 

1 Steevens LD us there is “no classical authority” for 
“chaste stars.’ Very likely; but then Othello has “authority ” 
as good, ee as “classical,” in the supposed unchastity of 
his wife, which is “the cause” of his present purpose, and which 
the purity of the stars withholds him from naming in their presence. 
No classical authority ! H. 

? The present regulation of this passage, by which so much 
beauty and spirit is “added to it, was proposed by Mr. Upton, but 
it is to be found in Ayres’s Life of Pope; it may therefore have 
originated with Warburton, who thus explains it: «The meaning 
is, I will put out the light, and then proceed to the execution of my 
purpose. But the expression of putting out the light bringing to 
mind the effects of the extinction of the light of life, he breaks 
short, and questions himself about the effects of this metaphorical 


he ‘ee! 


f 
‘ 
' 


0 - ee 


Siete ee a =" 


sc. Il THE MOOR OF VENICE. 545 


If I quench thee, thou flaming minister, 

I can again thy former light restore, 

Should I Repeyt me ; — but once put out thy light,® 

Thou cunning’st pattern of exéelling nature, 

I know not where is that erie hear heat, 

That can thy light relume. When I have pluck’d 

thy rose, 
I cannot give it vital growth again ; 
It needs must wither :— I'll smell it on the tree. — 
[ Kissing her. 
O, balmy breath, that dost almost persuade 
Justice to break her sword!—One more, one 
more. — 

Be thus when thou art dead, and I will kill thee, 

And love thee after.— One more, and this the last: 

So sweet was ne’er so fatal. I must weep, 

But they are cruel tears: this sorrow’s heavenly ; 

It strikes, where it doth love. — She wakes, — 
Des. Who’s there? Othello ? ; 
Oth. Ay, Desdemona. 
Des. Will you come to bed, my lord ? 
Oth. Have you pray’d to-night, Desdemona ? 
Des. Ay, my lord. 
Oth. If you bethink yourself of any crime 

Unreconcil’d as yet to Heaven and grace, 

Solicit for it straight. 


extinction, introduced by a repetition of his first words, as much as 
to say, — But hold, let me By: weigh the reflection which this ex- 
pression naturally excites.” Dr. Farmer treats this as a refine- 
ment of Warburton’s, aul that to put out the light was a 
phrase for to kill. « Broken sentences,” says Mr. Boswell, “are very 
-much in our Poet’s manner, and are surely nataral in the perturbed 
state of Othello’s mind. J am unwilling to persuade myself that 
a regulation of the text which contains so much beauty could be 
merely the refinement of a critic, and that our great author, in one 
of his most highly-wrought scenes, instead of it, intended nothing 
but a cold conceit.” 
3 Thus the folio; the quartos, “but once put out thine.” H. 


46 * 35 


546 OTHELLO, ACT V 


Des. Alas, my lord! what may you mean by that? 
Oth. Well, do it, and be brief; I will walk by: 
I would not kill thy aimprepared spirit ; 
No, — Heaven forefend!—I would not kill thy 
soul. 
Des. Talk you of killing ? 
Oth. Ay, I do. 
Des. Then, Heaven have mercy on me! 
Oth. Amen, with all my heart! 
Des. If you say so, I hope you will not kill me. 
Oth. Humph! 
Des. And yet I fear you; for you’re fatal then, 
When your eyes roll so: Why I should fear I 
know not, 
Since guiltiness I know not; but yet I feel I fear. 
Oth. Think on thy sins. 
Des. They are loves I bear to you. 
Oth. Ay, and for that thou diest. 
Des. That death’s unnatural, that kills for lov- 
ing. — 
Alas! why gnaw you so your nether lip? 
Some bloody passion shakes your very frame: 
These are portents; but yet, I hope, I hope 
They do not point on me. 
Oth. Peace, and be still! 
Des. 1 will so. What’s the matter? 
Oth. That bandkerchief, which I so lov’d, and 
gave thee, 
Thou gav’st to Cassio. 


Des. No, by my life and soul ! 
Send for the man, and ask him. 
Oth. Sweet soul, take heed, 


Take heed of perjury; thou art on thy death-bed. 
Des. Ay, but not yet to die. ! 
Oth. . Yes, presently : 


Sc. Il. THE MOOR OF VENICE. 547 


Therefore confess thee freely of thy sin ; 
# For to deny each article with oath, 
Cannot remove, nor choke, the strong conception, 
That I do groan withal. Thou art to die. 
Des. Then, Lord, have mercy on me! 
Oth. I say, amen. 
Des. And have you mercy too!—lI never did 
Offend you in my life ; never lov’d Cassio, 
But with such general warranty of Heaven 
As I might love: I never gave him token. 
Oth. By Heaven, I saw my handkerchief in’s 
hand! 
O, perjur’d woman! thou dost stone my heart, 
And mak’st me call what I intend to do 
A murder, which I thought a sacrifice : * 
I saw the handkerchief. 
Des. He found it, then; 
I never gave it him. —Send for him hither ; 
Let him confess a truth. . 
Oth. He hath confess’d. 
Des. What, my lord? 
Oth. That he hath— us’d thee. 


Des. How? unlawfully ? 
Oth. Ay. 

Des. He will not say so. 

Oth. No, his mouth is stopp’d 5 


Honest Iago hath ta’en order for’t. 


4 Some editors have managed to stumble at this passage. The 
Janguage is indeed compressed, but the meaning seems clear enough. 
Othello goes about the killing of his wife as an act of religion, and 
he fears lest her perjury may excite his anger, and so corrupt the 
deed into an act of revenge. This is Johnson’s explanation : 
« Thou hardenest my heart, and makest me kill thee with the rage 
‘of a murderer, when I thought to have sacrificed thee to justice 
with the calmness of a priest striking a victim.” — The quarto of 
1622 reads, “thou dost stone thy heart.” li. 


548 OTHELLO, ACT V. 


Des. My fear interprets, then.— What! is he 
dead 2 

Oth. Had all his hairs been lives, my great re- 
venge 

Wad stomach for them all. 

Des. Alas! he is betray’d, and I undone. 

Oth. Out, strumpet! Weep’st thou for him to 
my face ? 

Des. O! banish me, my lord, but kill me not. 

Oth. Down, strumpet ! 

Des. Kill me to-morrow ; let me live to-night. 

Oth. Nay, if you strive, — 


Des. But half an hour. 

Oth. Being done, 
There is no pause.” , 

Des. But while I say one prayer. 

Oth. It is too late.° [He smothers her. 


Emil. [ Within.] My lord, my lord! what ho! 
my lord, my lord! 
Oth. What noise is this?——Not dead? not yet 
quite dead ? 
I, that am cruel, am yet merciful ; 
I would not have thee linger in thy pain. — 
So, so.’ 


$ This speech is not in the first quarto. — Othello regards the 
act as done, when the conflict between his love and honour is fully 
over, his resolution finally taken, and his hand raised to strike. 
To admit any pause in such a case, were but to prolong the suf- 
fering of the victim. H. 

6 After this speech of Othello, the elder quarto adds an invo- 
cation from Desdemona, consisting only of the sacred name thrice 
repeated. 

7 At these words, the Othello of the stage is made to stab Des- 
demona. There is no such direction in any of the old copies ; but 
still the stage-custom may be right; as, in the agony of the mo- 
ment, and in his desire “ not to have her linger in her pain,” Othel- 
-o’s resolution not to shed her blood might be overcome. It seems 
more natural, too, that Desdemona should speak after being stabbed, 
than after being smothered to death. H. 


SC. II. THE MOOR OF VENICE. 549 


Emil. [Within.] What ho! my lord, my lord! 

Oth. Who’s there ? 

Emil. [Within.] O, good my lord! I would speak 
a word with you. 

Oth. Yes; —’Tis Emilia, — By and by. —She’s 


dead.— . 
Tis like she comes to speak of Cassio’s death : 
The noise was high. — Ha! no more moving ? 
Still as the grave. ia she come in? Were’t 
good 1 — 


I think she stirs again : —no.— What’s the best ? 
If she come in, she’ll sure speak to my wife : 
My wife! my wife! what wife?—I have no wife: 
O, insupportable, O, heavy hour ! 
Methinks, it should be now a huge eclipse 
Of sun and moon, and that th’ affrighted globe 
Should yawn at alteration. 

Emil. [ Within.} I do beseech you, I may speak — 

with you. 

O, good my lord! 

Oth. I had forgot thee: O, come in! Emilia. — 
Soft !— By and by : — let me the curtains draw. — 
Where art thou? What’s the matter with thee now ? 

[ Unlocks the Door. 


Enter Emtuia. 


Enmil, O, good my lord! eget foul murder 
done. 
Oth. What! now? 
Emil. But now, my lord. 
Oth. It is the very error of the moon ; 
She comes more near the earth than she was wont, 
And makes men mad. 
Emil. Cassio, my lord, has kill’d a young Vou. 
netian, 


Call’d Roderigo. 


550 OTHELLO, ACT V. 


Oth. Roderigo kill’d ! 
And Cassio kill’d ? 

Emil. _No3; Cassio is not kill’d. 

Oth. Not Cassio kill’d? Then murder’s out of 

tune, 
And sweet revenge grows harsh. . 

Des. O, falsely, falsely murder’d ! 

Emil. Alas! what cry is that? 

Oth. That! what? . 

Emil. Out, and alas ! that was my lady’s voice : — 
Help! help, ho! help! —O lady, speak again ! 
Sweet Desdemona! O, sweet mistress, speak ! 

Des. A guiltless death I die. 


Emil. O! who hath done 
This deed? | 
Des. Nobody; I myself; farewell : 


Commend me to my kind lord. O, farewell! [Dies. 
Oth. Why, how should she be murder’d ? 
Emil. Alas! who knows? 
Oth. You heard her say herself, it was not I. 
Emil. She said so; I must needs report the truth. 
Oth. She’s like a liar gone to burning hell : 
*T'was I that kill’d her. 
Emil. O, the more angel she, 
And you the blacker devil ! 
Oth. She turn’d to folly, and she was a whore. 
Emil. Thou dost belie her, and thou art a devil. 
Oth. She was false as water. 
Emil. Thou art rash as fire, to say 
That she was false: O, she was heavenly true ! 
Oth. Cassio did tup her; ask thy husband else. 
O! I were. damn’d beneath all depth in hell, 
But that I did proceed upon just grounds 
To this extremity. Thy husband knew it all. 
Emil. My husband ? 


Pi a = 


SC. II. ‘THE MOOR OF VENICE. 551 


‘ Oth. Thy husband. 

Emil. That she was false to wedlock ? 

Oth. Ay, with Cassio. Nay, had she been true,° 
If Heaven would make me such another world 
Of one entire and perfect chrysolite, 
I’d not have sold her for it. 

Emil. My husband ? 

Oth. Ay, ’twas he that told me first : 
An honest man he is, and hates the slime 
That sticks on filthy deeds. 

Emil. My husband ? 

Oth. What needs this iterance, woman ?° Isay, 

thy husband. 
Emil. O mistress, villainy hath made mocks with 
love | — 

My husband say that she was false ? 

Oth. He, woman 3 
I say, thy husband: dost understand the word? 
My friend, thy husband, honest, honest Iago. 

Emil. If he say so, may his pernicious soul 
Rot half a grain a day! he lies to th’ heart: 


_She was too fond of her most filthy bargain. 


Oth. Ha! 
Emil. Do thy worst: 
This deed of thine is no more worthy heaven, 
Than thou wast worthy her. 
Oth. Peace! you were best. 
Emil. Thou hast not half the power to do me 
harm, 
As I have to be hurt. O gull! O dolt! 


8 Thus both the quartos: the folio omits Nay. — In Othello’s 
next speech, the folio reads, “’twas he that told me on her first.” 
/ H. 

9 The quartos have iteration instead of iterance. In a former 
scene we have arrivance. — The next two speeches are wanting in 
the quarto of 1622. H. 


552 OTHELLO, ACT V 


As ignorant as dirt! thou hast done a deed, — 

I care not for thy sword; Vll make thee known, 

Though T lost twenty lives. — Help ! help, ho! help! 

The Moor has kill’d my mistress !— Murder! mur- 
der ! 


Enter Montano, GRATIANO, and Iago. 


Mon. What is the matter 1— How now, general ! 
Emil. O! are you come, Iago? you have done 
well, 
That men must lay their murders on your neck. 
Gra. What is the matter ? 
Emil. Disprove this villain, if thou be’st a man: 
He says, thou told’st him that his wife was false. 
I know thou didst not, thou’rt not such a villain. 
Speak, for my heart is full. 
Iago. I told him what I thought; and told no 
more 
Than what he found himself was apt and true. 
Emil. But did fou ever tell him she was false ? 
Lago. 1 did. 
Emil. You told a lie; an odious, damned lie ; 
Upon my soul, a lie; a wicked lie. — 
She false with Cassio! — Did you say with Cassio ? 
Tago. With Cassio, mistress. Go to, charm your 
tongue."° 
Emil. I will not charm my tongue ; I am bound 
to speak : 
My mistress here lies murder’d in her bed.” 
All. O, heavens forefend ! 


10 To charm is to enchant, to ay or still as witha charm. Pliny 
informs us that favete linguis was the constant exclamation before 
any charm was applied. From this circumstance the phrase to 
tharm a tongue, may have originated. 

11 This line is wanting in the first quarto. 


ib ls Sar 


SC. IL THE MOOR OF VENICE. 553 


Emil. And your reports have set the murder on. 

Oth. Nay, stare not, masters: it is true, indeed. 
Gra. "Vis a strange truth. 

Mon. O, monstrous act ! 

Emil. Villainy, villainy, villainy !— 


‘T think upon’t, —I think, —I smell’t: —O villainy! 


I thought so then :’* — I’ll kill myself for grief. — 
O villainy, villainy ! 
Tago. What! are you mad? I charge you, get 
you home. 
Emil. Good gentlemen, let me have leave to 
speak : 
"Tis proper I obey him, but not, now. — 
Perchance, Iago, I will ne’er go home. 
Oth. O! O! O!} [Hanging over his Wife. 
Emil. Nay, lay thee down, and roar ; 
For thou hast kill’d the sweetest innocent, 
That e’er did lift up eye. 
Oth. | Rising.] O, she was foul ! — 
I scarce did know you, uncle: there lies your niece, 
Whose breath, indeed, these hands have newly 
stopp’d. 
I know this act shows horrible and grim."* 
Gra. Poor Desdemona! I am glad thy father’s 
dead ; ' 
Thy match was mortal to him, and pure grief 
Shore his old thread in twain: did he live now, 
This sight would make him do a desperate turn, 
Yea, curse his better angel from his side, 
And fall to reprobation. 


12 That is, when she gave Desdemona’s handkerchief to Iago: 
for even then Emilia appears to have suspected it was sought after 
for no honest purpose. 

13 So the folio: both quartos have terrible instead of horrible 


_ — At the end of the next speech, the folio has reprobance for rep- 


robation, the reading of both quartos. H. 
VOL. X. 47 


Wc Ser ae 


504. OTHELLO, ACT V. 


Oth. ’Tis pitiful; but yet Iago knows, 
That she with Cassio hath the act of shame 
A thousand times committed :'4 Cassio confess’d it 5 
And she did gratify his amorous works 
With that recognizance and pledge of love 
Which I first gave her: I saw it in his hand: 
It was a handkerchief, an antique token 
My father gave my mother. 
Emil. O, Heaven! O, heavenly powers ! 
Lago. Come, hold your peace. 
Emil. ’Twill out, ’twill out: —I hold my peace, 
sir? no;'° 
No, I will speak as liberal as the north:** 


14 « Thousand times” is evidently put for an indefinite umber, 
or, as Steevens remarks, “an aggravated term for many times.’ 
Still the expression infers a good deal as to the space of time oc- 
cupied by the play. We have already seen that a considerable 
period must have elapsed after the arrival in Cyprus before the 
end of Act iii. See Act iii. se. 3, note 32; also sc. 4, note 16. 
Near the close of the third scene in Act i ili., the Moor says to Iago, 
— << Within these three days let me hear thee say, that Cassio’s not 
alive.” We may presume this period to have elapsed between 
Act iii. and Act v. It is not unlikely that Othello may suppose 
the wickedness between his wife and Cassio to have been in prog 
ress before his marriage, when Cassio “came a-wooing with him.” 
This, of course, would greatly aggravate her offence in his eye, by 
causing the marriage to seem designed on her part but as a cover 
for her guilty indulgence. The play may be cited as a very re- 
markable instance of unity of interest making us irrespective of 
time ; for until one goes into a critical scrutinizing of the scenes 
for that purpose, he never thinks but that the catastrophe occurs 


on the second night after the landing in Cyprus. H. 
15 Thus the quarto of 1630. The folio gives the line thus: 
«?T will out, twill out: I peace?” H. 


16 The three originals have each a severa] reading in this line; 
the first quarto giving it thus: “I'll be in speaking liberal. as the 
air ;”’ the second, thus: “I'll be in speaking liberal as the north.” 
It is not easy to choose between the readings. Some modern 
editions have a fourth reading made up from the folio and first 
quarto thus: “No, I will speak as liberal as the air.’’ — Of course 
liberal means free. H. 


SC. II. THE MOOR OF VENICE. 555 


Let heaven, and men, and devils, let them all, 

All, all, cry shame against me, yet I’ll speak. 
Lago. Be wise, and get you home. 4 
Emil. I will not. [laco offers to stab her. 
Gra. Fie! your sword upon a woman? 

Emil. O, thou dull Moor! that handkerchief thou 
speak’st of, 

I found by fortune, and did give my husband ; 

For often, with a solemn earnestness, 

(More than, indeed, belong’d to such a trifle, ) 

He begg’d of me to steal it. 

Lago. Villainous whore ! 
Emil. She give it Cassio! no, alas! I found it, 

And I did give’t my husband. 

Lago. Filth, thou liest. 
Emil. By Heaven, I do not; I do not, gentlemen 

O, murderous coxcomb! what should such a fool 

Do with so good a wife 2" 

[ The Moor runs at Taco, and is disarmed by 
Montano. Jaco stabs Emiuia, then 
runs out.'® 

~ Oth. Are there no stones in heaven, 

But what serve for the thunder ?'*— Precious vil- 

lain ! 

Gra. The woman falls: sure, he has kill’d his 
wife. ; 

Emil. Ay, ay: O, lay'‘me by my mistress’ side ! 

Gra. He’s gone, but his wife’s kill’d. 


. 
17 Thus the folio: both quartos have woman instead of wife. 


H. 
18 The folio gives no stage-direction here: the quartos have, 
“ The Moor runs at Iaco: Iaco kills his Wife.” Montano’s 


speech, just after, shows that Othello has been ‘disarmed by him. 


H. 
19 That is, “no bolts but what serve for the thunder.” We 
have before had “thunder-stone”’ for thunder-bolt. See Cymbe- 
line, Act iv. sc. 2, note 22. H. 


556 OTHELLO, ACT V. 


Mon. *Tis a notorious villain.” Take you this 
weapon, | 
Whiclt I have here recover’d from the Moor. 
Come, guard the door without: let him not pass, 
But kill him rather. TI’ll after that same villain, 
For ’tis a damned slave. 
[ Exzeunt Montano and GRATIANO. 

Oth. I am not valiant neither, 
But every puny whipster gets my sword. 

But why should honour outlive honesty ? 
Let it go.all. 

Emil. What did thy song bode, lady? 
Hark, canst thou hear me? I will play the swan, 
And die in music: « Willow, willow, willow.” — 
Moor, she was chaste; she lov’d thee, cruel Moor: 
So come my soul to bliss, as I speak true ; 

So speaking as I think, I die, —I die. [ Dies. 

Oth. I have another weapon in this chamber, 

It is a sword of Spain, the ice-brook’s temper.” 
O! here it is. — Uncle, I must come forth. 
Gra. [Within.] If thou attempt it, it will cost 
thee dear: 
Thou hast no weapon, and perforce must suffer. 

Oth. Look in upon me, then, and speak with nie, 

Or, naked as I am, I will assault thee. 


20 Strictly speaking, Iago was not a notorious villain, as his 
villainy had not been known. Probably the meaning is, worthy to 
be notorious, See Act iv. sc. 2, note 13. H. 

21 The way of tempering steel is by plungjng it red-hot into 
cold water; and the colder the water, the higher the temper at- 
tained. Steevens has shown from Martial and Justin that in Spain 
the waters of the Salo and the Chalybes, being remarkable for 
coldness, were used in tempering swords. As Toledo blades were 
famous all over Europe in the Poet’s time, he might easily learn 
that they were of “the ice-brook’s temper” without going to clas- 
sical authorities. H. 


SC. II. THE MOOR OF VENICE. 557 


Re-enter GRATIANO. 


Gra. What is the matter ? 

Oth. Behold! I have a weapon; 
A better never did itself sustain 
Upon a soldier’s thigh: I have seen the day, 
That with this little arm, and this good sword, 
I have made my way through more impediments 
Than twenty times your stop. But, O, vain boast! 
Who can control his fate? ’tis not so now. — 
Be not afraid, though you do see me weapon’d; ** 
Here is my journey’s end, here is my butt, 
And very sea-mark of my utmost sail. 
Do you go back dismay’d? ’tis a lost fear ; 
Man but a rush against Othello’s breast, 
And he retires. — Where should Othello go ?— 
Now, how dost thou look now? O,ill-starr’d wench! 
Pale as thy smock! when we shall meet at compt, 
This look of thine will hurl my soul from heaven, 
And fiends will snatch at it. Cold, cold, my girl; 
Even like thy chastity. — 
O cursed, cursed slave!— Whip me, ye devils, 
From the possession of this heavenly sight! 
Blow me about in winds! roast me in sulphur! 
Wash me in steep-down gulfs of liquid fire !— 
O, Desdemona! Desdemona! dead? O! O! O!* 


22 This and the six following lines are not in the first Ana : 
the other quarto and the folio have them. 

23 So both quartos: the folio gives the line thus: «O Deside- 
mon! dead Desdemon: dead. Oh, Oh!” The folio repeat- 
edly, in the course of the play, shortens Desdemona into Desdemon, 
and once or twice with good effect; but surely, in: this case, the 
quarto reading is much the more impressive. H. 


47* 


558 OTHELLO, ACT V. 


Enter Lopovico, Monrano, Cassio carried in a 
Chair,’ and Officers, with 1aGo, prisoner. 


Lod. Where is this rash and most unfortunate 
man ? 
Oth. That’s he, that was Othello: here I am. 
Lod. Where is that viper? bring the villain forth. 
Oth. I look down towards his feet — but that’s a 
fable : *° 
If that thou be’st a devil, I cannot kill thee. 
[OTHELLO wounds Jaco. 
Lod. Wrench his sword from him. 
Lago. I bleed, sir; but not kill’d. 
Oth. I am not sorry neither: I’d have thee live; 
For, in my sense, ’tis happiness to die. 
Lod. O, thou Othello! that wast once so good, 
Fall’n in the practice of a damned slave,”* 
What shall be said to thee ? 
Oth. Why, any thing: 
An honourable murderer, if you will ; 
For nought I did in hate, but all in honour. 
Lod. This wretch hath part confess’d his villainy. 
Did you and he consent in Cassio’s death ? 
Oth. Ay. 
Cas. Dear general, I never gave you cause. 
Oth. I do believe it, and I ask your pardon. 
Will you, I pray, demand that demi-devil, 
Why he hath thus ensnar’d my soul and body ? 


* 

24 The words, “carried in a Chair,” are not in the stage-di- 
rection of the folio, and are taken from the quartos. The modern 
custoin of the stage is, for Cassio to walk in lame and suppor 
with his leg bandaged. 

25 Alluding to the devil’s fabled cloven feet. ‘Othello ae 
down towards Iago’s feet, to see if he has that sign of being a 
devil, but then cbuehides hat he may be just as much a devil wile 


out a H. 
26 Thus both quartos: the folio has cursed instead of damned. 
H. 


a a 


it peat ial 


509 


SC. THE MOOR OF VENICE. ‘ 
Lago. Demand me nothing: what you know, you 
know. 


From this time forth I never will speak word. 

Lod. What! not to pray? » 

Gra. Torments will ope your lips. 

Oth. Well, thou dost best. 

Lod. Sir, you shall understand what hath befall’n, 
Which, as I think, you know not. Here is a letter, 
Found in the pocket of the slain Roderigo 5 
And here another: the one of them imports 
The death of Cagsio to be undertook 
By Roderigo. 

Oth. O villain ! 

Cas. . Most heathenish, and most gross! 

Lod. Now, here’s another discontented paper, 
Found in his pocket. too ; and this, it seems, 
Roderigo meant to have sent this damned villain ; 
But that, belike, Iago, in the interim, 

Came in and satisfied him. 

Oth. O, the pernicious caitiff !— 
How came you, Cassio, by that handkerchief 
That was my wife’s? 

Cas. I found it in my chamber ; 
And he himself confess’d, but even now, 

That there he dropp’d it, for a special purpose, 
Which wrought to his desire. 

Oth. O fool! fool! fool! 

Cas. There is, besides, in Rodeyigo’s letter, 
How he upbraids Iago, that he made him 
Brave me upon the watch; whcreon it came 
That I was cast: and even but now he spake, 
After long seeming dead, —Iago hurt him, 

Iago set him on. : 

Lod. You must forsake this room, and go with us: 

Your power and your command is taken off, 


560 OTHELLO, ACT V. 


And Gassio rules in Cyprus. For this slave, 

If there be any cunning cruelty, 

That can torment him much, and hold him long, 

It shall be his. You shall close prisoner rest, 

Till that the nature 6f your fault be known 

To the Venetian state. —- Come: bring him away. 
Oth. Soft you! a word or two, before you go. 

I have done the state some service, and they know it; 

No more of that.—I pray you, in your letters, 

When you shall these unlucky deeds relate, 

Speak of me as I am; nothing extenuate, 

Nor set down aught in malice: then, must you speak 

Of one that lov’d, not wisely, but too well; 

Of one not easily jealous, but, being wrought, 

Perplex’d in.the extreme; of one whose hand, 

Like the base Indian, threw a pearl away,”’ 


27 Thus both the quartos: the folio has Judean instead of tn- 
dian; and «thereby hangs a tale” of eritical and editorial com- 
ment much too long to be done up in a note. It was formerly 
thought that Indian was supported only by the quarto of 1622, so 
that Judean had the better authority ; but the balance of authority 
has since been restored by the quarto of 1630. Theobald pre- 
ferred Judean, and thought that the allusion was to Herod, “ who, 
in a fit of blind jealousy, threw away such a jewel of a wife as 
Mariamne was to him.” The older editors generally concur in the 
same reading. Malone was turned in favour of it by the word 
tribe, which he thought specially applicable to the Jews. In 
Shakespeare’s time, however, tribe was used for kindred, as in 
this very play Iago says, — “Good Heaven, the souls of all my 
tribe defend from jealousy.” So that there is no reason why the 
Poet may not have applied the word to the Indians, either of the 
East, or of America, as well as to the Jews. Coleridge remarks 
upon the passage thus: “ Othello wishes to excuse himself on the 
score of ignorance, and yet not excuse himself, —to excuse him- 
self by accusing. This struggle of feeling is finely conveyed in 
the word base, which is applied to the rude Indian, not in his own 
character, but as the momentary representative of Othello’s.” 
Knight, Collier, Verplanck, and Dyce, all agree in preferring In- 
dian. Whether Shakespeare meant an allusion to any particular 
story of an Indian, or to the Indians as generally described, is not 
quite clear ; probably, the latter. At all events, the old poets fur- 


a a ae 


SC. II. _ THE MOOR OF VENICE. 561] 


Richer than all his tribe; of one whose subdued eyes, 

Albeit unused to the melting mood, 

Drop tears as fast as the Arabian trees 

Their medicinal gum.** Set you down this; 

And say, besides, that in Aleppo once, 

. Where a malignant and a turban’d Turk 

Beat a Venetian,” and traduc’d the state, 

I took by th’ throat the circumcised dog, 

And smote him —thus. [Stabs himself 
Lod. O, bloody period! 
Gra. All that’s spoke is marr’d. 
Oth. I kiss’d thee, ere I kill’d thee: —no way but 

this, [Falling upon DespEMona. 

Killing myself, to die upon a kiss. [ Dies. 

Cas. This did I fear, but thought he had no 
weapon ; 

For he was great of heart. 
Lod. [ To Vaco.] O, Spartan dog,*° 

More fell than anguish, hunger, or the sea! 

Look on the tragic loading of this bed ; 

This is thy work: the object poisons sight ; 

Let it be hid. — Gratiano, keep the house, 


nish several passages in confirmation of the reading. ‘Thus in 
Drayton’s Legend of Matilda: “ The wretched Indian spurnes the 
golden ore.” ‘Thus, also, in The Woman’s Conquest, by Sir Ed- 
ward Howard: « Behold my queen, who with no more concern 
Tle cast away then Indians do a pearl, that ne’er did knowits value.” 
And in Habington’s Castara: 


“So the wnskilfull Indian those bright gems, 
Which might adde majestie to diadems, 
’Mong the waves scatters,’’ H. 


*8 Thus both quartos; the folio, “medicinable gum.” — For 
some account of the Arabian tree, see The Tempest, Act iii. se. 3 
yr 4, H. 

9 It is said to have been immediate death for a Christian to 
st »a Turk in Aleppo. 

“ The dogs of Spartan race were reckoned among those of the 
most fierce and savage kind. 


? 


36 


562 OTHELLO, ACT V. 


And seize upon the fortunes of the Moor, 

For they succeed to you. — To you, lord governor, 
Remains the censure of this hellish villain ; 

The time, the place, the torture : —O, enforce it! 
Myself will straight aboard, and to the state 

This heavy act with heavy heart relate.  [ Exeunt. 


Within a few years, a new view of Othello’s character has been 
maintained by Schlegel, which has found favour with several Eng- 
lish critics, who have repeated it in various forms. It is, that in 
Othello the Puet has painted not general nature, but the half-civil- 
ized African Prince. Schlegel recognizes in him “the wild nature 
of that glowing zone which generates the most furious beasts of 
prey, and the most deadly poisons, tamed only in appearance by 
the desire of fame, by foreign laws of honour, and by gentler 
manners.” —“ His jealousy,” says the German critic, “is not of 
the heart, which is compatible with the tenderest feeling and ado- 
ration of the beloved object; it is of that sensual sort which in 
torrid climes gives birth to the imprisonment of wives, and other 
barbarous usages. A drop of this poison flows in the Moor’s 
veins, and all his blood is inflamed. He seems, and is, noble, 
frank, confiding, grateful a hero, a worthy general, a faithful ser- 
vant of the State; but the physical force of passion puts to flight 
at once all his acquired and accustomed virtues, and gives the 
savage within him the rule over the moral man. The tyranny of 
the blood over the will betrays itself in his desire of revenge 
against Cassio. In his repentant sorrow, a genuine tenderness for 
his murdered wife bursts forth, with the painful sentiment of anni- 
hilated reputation, and he assails himself with the rage which a des- 
pot displays in punishing a runaway slave. He suffers as a double 
man ; at once in the higher and in the lower sphere into which his 
being is divided.” 

All this is ingenious, original, eloquent ; yet to my mind widely 
different from the Poet’s intention, and the actual character he has 
so vividly portrayed. . 

So far as the passions of Love and Jealousy are the results o 
our common nature, their manifestations must be alike in the Moor 
and the European ; differing only as modified by the more quickly 
excited and inflammable temperament of the children of the sun, 
or the slower and steadier temperament of the men of the north. 


But the critic confounds with this difference another one,—that 


resulting from the degraded and enslaved state of woman in the 


half civilized nations of the East. There the jealous revenge of — 


the master-husband, for real or imagined evil, is but the angry 
chastisement of an offending slave, not the terrible sacrifice of his 
own happiness involved in the victim’s punishment. 


td 


sc. IL THE MOOR OF VENICE. 563 


But Othello is portrayed with no single trait in common with 
the tyrant of the Eastern or the African seraglio. His early 
love is not one of wild passion, but of esteem for Desdemona’s 
gentle virtue, of gratitude for her unlooked-for interest in him- 
self and his history, and of pride in her strong attachment. 
The Poet has laboured to show that his is the calm and steady 
affoction of “a constant, noble nature;” it is respectful, con- 
fiding, “ wrapt up in measureless content,” and manifesting a ten- 
der and protecting superiority which has something in it almost 
parental. In his jealousy and revenge, he resembles not the Ma- 
hommetan so much as the proud and sensitive Castilian. He is 
characterized by all the higher qualities of European chivalry, and 
especially by that quick sense of personal reputation “which feels 
a stain Jike a wound,” and makes his own life and that of others 
alike cheap in his eyes, compared with his honour. It is this, to- 
gether with the other habits and characteristics of one trained in 
an adventurous military life, by which he is individualized. He 
is made a Moor, not because that is at all necessary to the story, 
but because the Poet found it in the tale from which he derived the 
outline of his plot; and it was adopted as an incident plastic to 
nis purpose, and by its peculiarity giving that air of reality to the 
story, which accidental and unessential circumstances, such as pure 
imagination would not have indicated, can alone confer. It is on 
this account: indeed, that the original tale itself, to my mind, has 
not the appearance of a product of fancy, but seems, like many 
of our traditionary romantic narratives, founded upon some occur- 
rence in real life. 

Othello’s Moorish blood is thus, to use a logical phrase, an ac- 
cident, distinguishing the individual character, and adding to it the 
effect of life and reality; but it is not in any sense essential to its 
sentiment or passion. ‘The tone of chivalrous honour and military 
bearing is much more so, and yet that serves only to modify and 
colour the exhibition of passions common to civilized man. Were 
Othello but the spirited portrait of a half-tamed barbarian, we 
should view him as a bold and happy poetical conception, and, as 
such, the Poet’s work might satisfy our critical judgment; but it 
is because it depicts a noble mind, wrought by deep passion and 
dark devices to agonies such as every one might feel, that it 
awakens our strongest sympathies. We see in this drama a grand 
and true moral picture ; we read in it a profound ethical lesson ; 
for, to borrow the just image of the classical Lowth, while the 
matchless work is built up to the noblest height of poetry, it rests 
upon the deepest foundations of true philosophy. — VERPLANCK. 


END OF THE PLAYS. 


Cues i 


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